Russia’s Defense Ministry said four U.S.-provided Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) rockets, were intercepted over the city of Sevastopol, but fragments from the fifth rocket led to “numerous casualties among civilians” on the ground.

“All flight missions for the American ATACMS operational-tactical missiles are entered by American specialists based on U.S.’ own satellite reconnaissance data,” the ministry said in a statement. “Therefore, responsibility for the deliberate missile attack on civilians in Sevastopol lies primarily with Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine, as well as the Kyiv regime, from whose territory this attack was launched.”

NBC News could not independently confirm what type of weapons were used in the attack. The U.S. has been providing Ukraine with military aid to defend against Russia’s invasion, which started in February 2022. The Biden administration recently gave Ukraine permission to use American weapons to strike inside Russia, two American officials told NBC News.

The White House and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and considers it part of Russia, though it remains internationally recognized as Ukrainian territory.

“Such actions will not go unanswered,” the ministry added.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the city’s Moscow-installed governor, said three children were among the dead and more than 120 were injured, Russian state news agency Tass reported.

Razvozhayev declared Monday a day of mourning in the city and said he has been visiting the injured in the hospitals. Russian President Vladimir Putin called him immediately after the attack and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, Razvozhayev added.

The governor accused Kyiv authorities of striking “on the sly” at a time when many residents were returning from church and the celebrations of the Orthodox holiday of Holy Trinity or were on the beach with their children.

His deputy Alexander Kulagin also told Tass that many among the injured were at the beach during the attack.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said doctors were being sent from the capital to provide all necessary assistance, and Moscow clinics were ready to receive victims.

There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv. The country’s ministry of defense, ministry of foreign affairs and military officials did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has called the attack “an act of terrorism” carried out with U.S. weapons that should be condemned by the United Nations. Moscow-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said the incident was “a barbaric, unscrupulous terrorist attack.”

Russian authorities have launched a criminal investigation into the attack.

Also on Sunday, Ukrainian authorities reciprocated with accusations of terrorism against civilians, reporting the latest deadly Russian strike on the border city of Kharkiv.

Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Russia continued to attack civilian infrastructure in the city with aerial bombs. The strikes on Sunday killed one person and injured 11, Syniehubov said, adding that the latest attack left part of Kharkiv without power, shutting down the metro in the country’s second largest city.

It comes just a day after three people were killed and 41 were injured in another attack on Kharkiv that damaged a five-story residential building, according to Syniehubov.

Abigail Williams contributed.

This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here:

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Parts of a stand from Kharkiv’s Sonyachny stadium that was built for Euro 2012 — which Ukraine co-hosted — was displayed in a square in Munich ahead of the team’s opener against Romania.

The stadium was destroyed by Russian troops in May 2022 and is part of an interactive installation highlighting that 500 sports infrastructure facilities in Ukraine have suffered from Russian bombings and missile strikes during the war.

“Today we’re going to start our games,” said former Ukraine coach and striker Andriy Shevchenko, who is the president of the country’s soccer federation. “One team on the field but a million soldiers who stay and defend Ukraine.

“We are all together. We play today for the country. We play today for the people who defend our lives and our country.”

The stadium was the training base for the Netherlands team during Euro 2012. Ukraine also trained there ahead of the last European Championship, where it reached the quarterfinals in its most successful campaign to date.

“Learning that the stadium was destroyed felt like finding out your home was ruined,” said Shevchenko, who was Ukraine’s coach at Euro 2020.

The stand and installation will be taken around to different German cities with the next stop being Düsseldorf, where Ukraine plays its next Group E match against Slovakia on Friday.

“It’s very important that we show during the war that in the country, we continue our lives,” the 47-year-old Shevchenko added. “Sport is a big part of our society. It’s a very powerful tool, but in good hands.

“The participation of Ukrainian team today it’s very important message for the rest of the world that we continue to live and we’re going to fight, but not only fight we’re going to do our normal life and try to be part of European society and the world society who share the same values of their freedom and democracy with us.”

The joint communique capped a two-day conference marked by the absence of Russia, which was not invited. Many attendees expressed hope that Russia might join in on a road map to peace in the future.

The all-out war since President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people, unsettled markets for goods like grain and fertilizer, driven millions from their homes and carved a wedge between the West — which has sanctioned Moscow — and Russia, China and some other countries.

About 100 delegations, mostly Western countries, attended the conference that was billed as a first step toward peace. They included presidents and prime ministers from France, Germany, Britain, Japan, Poland, Argentina, Ecuador, Kenya and Somalia. The Holy See was also represented, and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke for the United States.

India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates — represented by foreign ministers or lower-level envoys — were among countries that did not sign the final document, which focused on issues of nuclear safety, food security and the exchange of prisoners. Brazil, an “observer,” did not sign on but Turkey did. China did not attend.

The final document signed by 78 countries said the U.N. Charter and “respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty … can and will serve as a basis for achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” That has been a nonstarter for Putin, who wants Ukraine to cede more territory and back away from its hopes of joining the NATO military alliance.

Viola Amherd, the Swiss president, told a news conference the “great majority” of participants agreed to the final document, which “shows what diplomacy can achieve.” Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said Switzerland would reach out to Russian authorities but did not say what the message would be.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the “first steps toward peace” at the meeting and said Ukraine was in talks with some countries, which he did not name, that had offered to host a “second peace summit.” No timetable was laid out.

Zelenskyy earlier this month accused China, backed by Russia, of attempting to undermine the Swiss conference, a claim denied by Beijing.

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Allies of Ukraine now face the task of trying to keep up momentum toward peace. Zelenskyy said national security advisers would meet in the future, and “there will be a specific plan” afterward.

Testifying to war fatigue and other preoccupations, only about half of U.N. member countries took part. It’s a far cry from March 2022, when condemnation of Russia’s invasion led to passage of a non-binding resolution at the U.N. General Assembly by 141 countries calling for Russian troops to leave Ukraine.

It wasn’t clear why some developing countries attending didn’t line up behind the final statement, but they may be hesitant to rankle Russia or have cultivated a middle ground between Moscow, its ally China and Western powers backing Kyiv.

“Some did not sign — even though very few — since they are playing ‘Let’s have peace based on concessions’ game, and they usually mean concessions by Ukraine, and basically accommodating Russian demands,” said Volodymyr Dubovyk, a Ukraine expert and senior fellow at Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington-based think tank. “They also like this ‘neutrality’ positioning.”

Dubovyk said the way forward for Ukraine was to receive aid — weapons and humanitarian assistance — that could improve its situation on the ground and thus give it a better negotiating position.

At the Swiss event, the challenge was to talk tough on Russia but open the door for it to join a peace initiative.

“Many countries … wanted the involvement of representatives of the Russian Federation,” Zelenskyy said. “At the same time, the majority of the countries do not want to shake hands with them (Russian leaders) … so there are various opinions in the world.”

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive Commission, said peace won’t be achieved in a single step and asserted that Putin isn’t serious about ending the war.

“He is insisting on capitulation. He is insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory — even territory that today is not occupied by him,” she said. “He is insisting on disarming Ukraine, leaving it vulnerable to future aggression. No country would ever accept these outrageous terms.”

Analysts suspected the conference would have little concrete impact toward ending the war because Russia, was not invited. China and Brazil have jointly sought to plot alternative routes toward peace.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said Saturday that his rich Gulf country hosted talks with both Ukrainian and Russian delegations on the reunification of Ukrainian children with their families. It has so far resulted in 34 children being reunited.

The Ukrainian government believes that 19,546 children have been deported or forcibly displaced, and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova previously confirmed that at least 2,000 were taken from Ukrainian orphanages.

In Kyiv, at a regular demonstration by relatives of soldiers captured by Russia, the response to the Swiss gathering was muted.

“I would really like to believe that this (conference) will have an impact, but some very important countries did not sign the communique,” said Yana Shyrokyh, 56, whose army serviceman son has been in captivity since 2022. “I would really like them to find powerful levers of influence on Russia.”

___

Associated Press journalists Derek Gatopoulos, Illia Novikov and Dmytro Zhyhinas in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

Details of the deal were still being hashed out as G7 leaders gathered for a summit in Italy, but the money could reach Kyiv before the end of the year. That’s according to a French official who confirmed the agreement Wednesday ahead of a formal announcement at the summit. Here’s how the plan would work:

Most of the money would be provided in the form of a loan from the U.S. government that would be backed by windfall profits being earned on roughly $300 billion in immobilized Russian assets. The vast majority of the money is being held in European Union nations.

A French official said that while the loan would be mostly U.S.-guaranteed, it could be “topped up” with European money or other national contributions.

That’s much harder to do.

For more than a year, officials from multiple countries have debated the legality of confiscating the money and sending it to Ukraine.

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The U.S. and its allies immediately froze whatever Russian central bank assets they had access to when Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022 — basically, money being held in banks outside Russia.

The assets are immobilized and can’t be accessed by Moscow — but they still belong to Russia.

While governments can generally freeze property or funds without difficulty, turning them into forfeited assets that can be used for the benefit of Ukraine requires an extra layer of judicial procedure, including a legal basis and adjudication in a court.

So the European Union instead has set aside the windfall profits being generated by the frozen assets. That pot of money is easier to access.

Separately, the U.S. earlier this year passed a law called the REPO Act — short for the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act — that allows the Biden administration to seize $5 billion in Russian state assets located in the U.S. and use them for the benefit of Kyiv. That arrangement is still being worked out.

It will be up to technical experts to work through the details.

But U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Wednesday that the goal is “to provide the necessary resources to Ukraine now for its economic energy and other needs so that it’s capable of having the resilience necessary to withstand Russia’s continuing aggression.”

Another goal is to get the money to Ukraine fast.

The French official, who was not authorized to be publicly named according to French presidential policy, said the details could be worked out “very quickly and in any case, the $50 billion will be disbursed before the end of 2024.”

Beyond the costs of the war, the needs are great. The World Bank’s latest damage assessment of Ukraine, released in February, estimates that costs for reconstruction and recovery of the nation stand at $486 billion over the next 10 years.

The move to unlock Russia’s assets comes after there was a long delay by the U.S. Congress in approving military aid for Ukraine.

At an Atlantic Council event previewing the G7 summit, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst said “the fact that American funding is not quite reliable is a very important additional reason to go that route.”

If Russia regained control of its frozen assets or if the immobilized funds weren’t generating enough interest to pay back the loan, “then the question of burden-sharing arises,” according to the French official.

Who would shoulder the burden is still to be worked out, the official said.

Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said last week that there were worries among European finance ministers that their countries “will be left holding the bag if Ukraine defaults.”

___

Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Colleen Long aboard Air Force One en route to Italy contributed to this report.

Biden will participate in a three-day meeting in Apulia, Italy, of the Group of Seven, or G7, the organization formed by the world’s largest industrialized nations, where a major topic will be tapping $300 billion worth of frozen Russian assets to strengthen Ukraine on the battlefield, according to the White House.

Biden and his counterparts largely agree about the merits of seizing Russian assets to help underwrite Ukraine’s effort, though there is friction about how best to go about it, a person familiar with U.S. planning for the summit said.

The Biden administration had wanted to use both principal and interest from Russia’s assets to help pay for the war, while European nations had favored using only the interest, the person said. With Ukraine urgently needing more arms, the Biden administration is prepared to compromise and embrace the path European leaders prefer, the source added.

One option under consideration is for the G7 nations — the others are France, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany — to provide Ukraine with about $50 billion up front and then recoup the money in interest income over the next 10 years.

Biden suggested that he made headway in reaching a deal during his trip to France last week commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

Talking with reporters at a World War I cemetery outside Paris, he was asked whether he had spoken to French President Emmanuel Macron about dipping into frozen Russian assets and whether the two had reached an agreement.

“Yes and yes,” Biden said, without providing more details.

Biden spent much of his five-day trip to France making the case for bolstering Ukraine. Just as the U.S. and its allies collaborated in defeating the Nazis in World II, democratic nations must be resolute in helping defend Ukraine and demonstrate to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he can’t expand his reign by force, Biden argued.

If he vanquishes Ukraine, an emboldened Putin might well push into Poland and other NATO countries, Biden has said, potentially triggering a wider and deadlier conflict.

In Paris, Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and announced a $225 million weapons package that includes air defense interceptors and artillery ammunition. He is expected to meet with Zelenskyy again during the G7 conference.

“We want to see every country come on board with a method by which we can mobilize resources for Ukraine at a scale so that they are able to have what they need to be able to succeed in this war,” Jake Sullivan, the White House’s national security adviser, said at a recent news briefing.

Though Biden has repeatedly made the case to Americans that it’s in the country’s interest to help Ukraine, public support for the war is sagging, polling shows.

More than 40% of U.S. adults believed the U.S. wasn’t giving Ukraine enough help back in March 2022, a month after Russia invaded, according to Pew Research Center polling. Two years later, that figure had dropped nearly 20 points.

The share of U.S. adults who buy into Biden’s argument that Russia poses a threat to other countries in the region fell from 59% to 48% in a two-year period ending in April, Pew’s survey found.

Even as many Americans cool on the war, Biden also faces pressure to step up efforts to assist Ukraine. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the U.S. should train Ukrainian forces inside that country and permit Zelenskyy’s forces to strike targets inside Russia.

Brett Bruen, who was director of global engagement in Barack Obama’s White House, said in an interview that he would also like Biden to send U.S. military trainers to Ukraine.

“The upside of getting trainers on the ground in Ukraine far outweighs any risk, and it’s something that we’re doing in far less strategically important places,” Bruen said.

“I’m not suggesting we throw tens of thousands of Americans into Ukraine, but it does require us to revisit some of these restrictive rules” the Biden administration has applied, he added.

Though the war is likely to be a dominant issue, the G7 leaders will also talk through the challenges posed by artificial intelligence and what they see as China’s practice of flooding global markets with its goods. A special guest will make an appearance at the summit: Pope Francis.

Making back-to-back European trips would exhaust any president, but it may be especially grueling for Biden, who is 81. He also faces a family crisis.

On Tuesday, the day before he was set to depart, a jury found his son Hunter Biden guilty on all three felony gun charges he faced in a federal trial in Wilmington, Delaware.

Biden and his son are especially close, and the president will need a certain emotional armor to sustain his focus during the summit meeting, people who’ve worked with him said.

William Cohen, a Republican former senator from Maine who served with Biden on Capitol Hill, said he believed Biden “will be steeled for this” in Italy.

“You go through family structures and you’re always going to find a problem. He has to put that way behind him,” Cohen said.

The presidential election is bound to come up during Biden’s private meetings with his counterparts. He told Time magazine in a recent interview that he is often asked about former President Donald Trump by foreign leaders who, he said, confide to him that they dread Trump’s possible return.

But the leaders may also be making their own quiet evaluation of Biden and whether he looks like someone who can win one last race.

“European leaders will be looking at Biden and what he’s saying and doing,” said Keith Kellogg, who was a senior national security official in the Trump White House. “They’ll be watching the visuals.”

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Kyiv’s main military intelligence service shared satellite photos it said showed the aftermath of the attack. If confirmed, it would mark Ukraine’s first known successful strike on a twin-engine Su-57 stealth jet, lauded as Moscow’s most advanced fighter plane.

In one photo, black soot marks and small craters can be seen dotting a concrete strip around the parked aircraft. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, the strike took place on Saturday at the Akhtubinsk base in southern Russia, some 589 kilometers (366 miles) from the front line.

The Ukrainian agency said the plane, which is capable of carrying stealth missiles across hundreds of kilometers (miles), was among “a countable few” of its type in Moscow’s arsenal. According to reports by Russian agencies, Moscow’s air force obtained “more than 10” new Su-57s last year, and has placed an order for a total of 76 to be delivered by 2028.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, hours later said on Ukrainian TV that the attack may have damaged two Su-57 jets parked at the base, and also wounded Russian personnel. He did not immediately give any evidence to support the claim.

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Ilya Yevlash, a spokesman for Ukraine’s air force, told Ukrainian media in April that Moscow was trying to keep its Su-57 fleet “at a safe distance” from Ukrainian firepower.

The strike comes after the United States and Germany recently authorized Ukraine to hit some targets on Russian soil with the long-range weapons they are supplying to Kyiv. Ukraine has already used U.S. weapons to strike inside Russia under newly approved guidance from President Joe Biden that allows American arms to be used for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

But the airstrip’s distance from Ukraine, as well as unofficial comments from Russia, point to the likely use of Ukrainian-made drones. Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, Kyiv has ramped up domestic drone production and used the munitions to strike deep inside Russia. In January, drones hit a gas terminal near St. Petersburg that lies over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of the border.

A popular pro-Kremlin Telegram channel, thought to be run by a retired Russian army pilot, claimed that three Ukrainian drones struck the Akhtubinsk airstrip on Saturday and that flying shrapnel damaged the jet.

“It is now being determined whether it can be restored or not. If not, it would be the first combat loss of a Su-57 in history,” the Fighterbomber channel reported.

A military correspondent for Russia’s state-run RIA news agency, Aleksandr Kharchenko, in a Telegram post Sunday denounced Moscow’s failure to build hangars to protect its aircraft. But the post stopped short of directly acknowledging the strike.

Russia’s so-called “military bloggers” like Fighterbomber are often seen as sources of information on military losses in the absence of an official Kremlin comment. Russia’s Defense Ministry or senior political figures did not comment Sunday.

The ministry on Saturday claimed its forces downed three Ukrainian drones in the Astrakhan region, home to the Akhtubinsk airstrip. Igor Babushkin, the governor of Astrakhan, that same day reported that Ukraine attempted to strike an unspecified facility there, but claimed the attack was unsuccessful.

Russia’s Su-57 fleet has been largely absent from the skies over Ukraine, and has instead been used to fire long-range missiles across the border. The U.K. Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence briefing last year that Russia is likely trying to avoid “reputational damage, reduced export prospects, and the compromise of sensitive technology” that would come from losing any Su-57 jets in enemy territory.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces kept up drone attacks on Russia’s southern border regions, according to local Russian officials.

Three drones hit Belgorod province late on Saturday, damaging a power line and blowing out windows but causing no casualties, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. Another five drones and a Ukrainian-made missile were brought down over the region on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

According to an update by Pepel (Ashes), a channel run by Belgorod journalists now based outside Russia, Ukrainian drones on Sunday afternoon struck an ammunition depot outside the town of Rakitnoye, some 35 kilometres (22 miles) from Ukraine. Footage circulating on social media showed thick plumes of smoke rising into the sky. In one video, a woman’s voice is heard, saying “I wonder if soldiers lived there?”

Gladkov, the governor, did not directly comment on those claims, but confirmed that a blaze had broken out in a “non-residential building” near Rakitnoye. He said no one was hurt.

Across Ukraine’s front-line provinces, Russian shelling killed at least three civilians and wounded at least nine others on Saturday and overnight, according to reports by regional officials.

A man died and two women suffered wounds in the village of Khotimlya, east of Kharkiv, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Shelling also damaged the local school, a council building, a shop and private homes, Syniehubov said.

Heavy battles continued in the area as Ukrainian troops try to beat back Russia’s invading forces after a weekslong push by Moscow that sparked fears for Kharkiv, located just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border, and a wave of civilian evacuations.

Russia’s coordinated new offensive has centered on the Kharkiv region, but seems to include testing Ukrainian defenses in Donetsk farther south, while also launching incursions in the northern Sumy and Chernihiv regions.

The easing of restrictions on the use of Western weapons will help Ukraine protect Kharkiv by targeting Russian capabilities across the border, according to Ukrainian and Western officials. It is unclear what other impact it may have on the direction of the war, in what is proving to be a critical period.

The move drew a furious response from Moscow, and warnings it could embroil NATO in a war with Russia. But Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, described it as “common sense.”

“What was happening up around Kharkiv … was a Russian offensive where they were moving from one side of the border directly to the other side of the border, and it simply didn’t make sense not to allow the Ukrainians to fire across that border, to hit Russian guns and emplacements that were firing at (them),” Sullivan said Sunday in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

___

Kozlowska reported from London.

Biden met in Paris with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who appealed for bipartisan U.S. support going forward “like it was during World War II.”

A day earlier, the two had attended ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, where Biden had drawn common cause between the allied forces that helped free Europe from Nazi Germany and today’s effort to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and Zelenskyy had been greeted with a rapt ovation.

“I apologize for those weeks of not knowing what’s going to happen in terms of funding,” Biden said, referring to the six-month holdup by conservative Republicans in Congress to a $61 billion military aid package for Ukraine. Still, the Democratic president insisted that the American people were standing by Ukraine for the long haul. “We’re still in. Completely. Thoroughly,” he said.

The apology — and Zelenskyy’s plea for rock-solid support akin to the allied coalition in WWII — served as a reminder that for all of Biden’s talk of an unflagging U.S commitment to Ukraine, recalcitrance among congressional Republicans and an isolationist strain in American politics have exposed its fragility. And, although unremarked upon, the specter of Donald Trump’s candidacy loomed over the discussion, as the Republican former president and the presumptive nominee has spoken positively of Russian President Vladimir Putin and sparked Ukrainian concerns that he would call for it to cede territory to end the conflict.

Zelenskyy pressed for all Americans to support his country’s defense against Russia’s invasion, and he thanked lawmakers for eventually coming together to approve the weapons package, which has allowed Ukraine to stem Russian advances in recent weeks.

“It’s very important that in this unity, United States of America, all American people stay with Ukraine like it was during World War II,” Zelenskyy said. “How the United States helped to save human lives, to save Europe. And we count on your continuing support in standing with us shoulder to shoulder.”

The United States is by far Kyiv’s biggest supplier of wartime support, and Ukraine is trying to fend off an intense Russian offensive in eastern areas of the country. The push is focused on the Ukrainian border regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk, but Ukrainian officials say it could spread as Russia’s bigger army seeks to make its advantage tell.

The offensive is seeking to exploit Kyiv’s shortages of ammunition and troops along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line.

The slow pace of delivery of pledged Western weaponry has long frustrated Zelenskyy, as has Biden’s hesitation over supplying more hardware for fear of provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin. That has caused tension in their relationship.

The U.S. will send about $225 million in military aid to Ukraine, Biden announced Friday. The latest package includes munitions for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, as well as mortar systems and an array of artillery rounds, U.S. officials said Thursday.

A Ukrainian strike on its partially-occupied Luhansk region using U.S.-made ATACMS missiles killed three people and injured 35 others Friday, local Moscow-appointed authorities said.

Biden cast the additional aid in his meeting with Zelenskyy as money to “reconstruct the electric grid” in Ukraine, a reference aides said was to additional air defense and missile defense systems in the new package.

Easing their stance amid Russia’s most recent onslaught and with Ukraine’s army reeling, some NATO allies including the U.S. said last week they would allow Ukraine to use weapons they deliver to Kyiv to carry out limited attacks inside Russia.

That step brought a furious response from the Kremlin, which warned that Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II could spin out of control.

Biden and Zelenskyy attended the anniversary events of D-Day in Normandy, northern France, on Thursday, along with European leaders who have supported Kyiv’s efforts in the war. Biden pledged “we will not walk away” from Ukraine, drawing a direct line from the fight to liberate Europe from Nazi domination to today’s war against Russian aggression.

Ukraine depicts its fight against the Kremlin’s forces as a clash between Western democratic freedom and Russian tyranny. Russia says it is defending itself against a menacing eastward expansion of the NATO military alliance.

In a 20-minute speech Friday at the National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament, Zelenskyy drew a parallel with the sacrifices made during World War II and his country’s current fight.

“This battle is a crossroads,” Zelenskyy said. “A moment where we can now write history the way we need it. Or we can become victims of history as it suits … our enemy.”

Zelenskyy, who spoke in Ukrainian, was frequently interrupted by lawmakers’ applause and cheers. He prompted a standing ovation when he said in French: “Dear France, I thank you for standing by our side as we defend life.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, announced late Thursday that France will provide Ukraine with its Mirage combat aircraft.

Macron has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine. He said in February that putting Western troops on the ground in Ukraine is not “ruled out.”

Zelenskyy began a day of meetings in Paris with an official welcome ceremony at the golden-domed Invalides monument, site of Napoleon’s tomb.

During the day, Zelenskyy skipped a scheduled visit to the Nexter arms manufacturer in Versailles, which makes the Caesar self-propelled howitzers that are among the weapons provided by France to Kyiv’s forces. He went instead to France’s military headquarters with defense manufacturers, and his delegation signed defense agreements.

He was also to meet with Macron at the Élysée Palace.

Zelenskyy’s foreign trips aim to keep Ukraine’s plight in the public eye, secure more military help for its fight against Russia’s invasion and lock in long-term Western support through bilateral alliances.

France and Ukraine in February signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement. Zelenskyy has since signed similar bilateral agreements with many European countries.

The officials said the aid includes munitions for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, as well as mortar systems and an array of artillery rounds. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss aid not yet publicly announced.

Under a new U.S. directive, Ukraine can use such weapons to strike across the border into Russia if forces there are attacking or preparing to attack. That change, however, does not alter U.S. policy that directs Ukraine not to use American-provided ATACMS or long-range missiles and other munitions to strike offensively inside Russia, according to U.S. officials.

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The new aid package comes as President Joe Biden used his speech Thursday at the American cemetery in Normandy on the 80th anniversary of D-Day to vow that the U.S. “will not walk away” from the defense of Ukraine and allow Russia to threaten more of Europe. To do so, he said, would mean the U.S. has forgotten “what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”

Biden is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris on Friday.

On Wednesday, a Western official and a U.S. senator said Ukraine has used U.S. weapons to strike inside Russia. And a June 3 report from the Institute for the Study of War suggests that Ukrainian forces used a HIMARS system to strike a Russian S-300/400 air defense battery in the Belgorod region in recent days.

The new aid package is being provided through presidential drawdown authority, which pulls systems and munitions from existing U.S. stockpiles so they can go quickly to the war front.

Officials said the aid package also includes missiles for the HAWK air defense system, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems, 155mm Howitzers, armored vehicles, trailers, patrol boats, demolition materials and a wide range of other spare parts and equipment.

Ukrainian officials have pressed the U.S. to allow Kyiv’s forces to defend themselves against attacks originating from Russian territory. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, sits just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border and has come under intensified Russian attack.

In response to NATO allies allowing Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday that Russia could provide long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets.

The additional HIMARS munitions are part of a U.S. effort to beef up Ukraine’s use of the key weapons. The State Department last month approved a proposed emergency sale of HIMARS systems to Ukraine for an estimated $30 million. State said Ukraine has asked to buy three of the rocket systems, which would be funded by the government of Germany.

Macron and others have urged a temporary cease-fire during the Games held in Paris between July 26 and Aug. 11.

Both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have rejected this idea, however, with the Russian leader protesting the Olympic ban on Russia’s flag, and his Ukrainian counterpart saying such a pause would only benefit Moscow on the battlefield.

“Every week until now, President Putin was claiming to be available for peace,” Macron said in an interview this week in Paris with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. He did not discuss Zelenskyy’s rejection of the proposal, but said that Putin “is the one who decided to launch this war” and declining the truce shows the world “he is not ready to make peace.”

Macron called for the truce earlier this month alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was on a visit to France at the time. Xi has declared a “no limits” partnership with Putin despite claiming China is neutral when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine.

Macron said that an Olympic truce could be used as an opportunity to build both ties with China and a longer-term end to the war, whatever that may look like, a theme he reiterated in his interview.

“Look, a truce is not for me the endgame; sustainable peace is the endgame,” he said. “But I think it’s very important, this tradition, and it’s very important to use this window” during the Olympics.

“I think this is a very good opportunity, first diplomatically to engage with China and others and say, ‘OK, you are on the peace side. Get with us and help us to do so,’” he said. “And, second, to maximize the level of pressure on those who decided to launch a war,” he added, referring to Russia.

Macron has become increasingly hawkish on Russia in recent months, most notably refusing to rule out sending Western troops to the Ukrainian battlefield, in a pivot that has stoked fury from the Kremlin.

Asked about such a truce last week, Putin said the sentiment was “very right” but accused the International Olympic Committee of “violations” to its own principles by banning Russian athletes from competing under their country’s own flag or name.

In an interview with the AFP news agency, Zelenskyy said he was against “any truce that plays into the hands of the enemy.”

The concept of the Olympic truce — or Ekecheiria, meaning “holding of hands,” as it is known in the original Greek — dates back to the inaugural ancient Games in 776 BC, according to the IOC. It was implemented as a way to allow athletes and spectators to travel between the often warring Greek city states.

It was revived and formally adopted by the IOC in 1993 in response to the ongoing Balkan wars. In reality, it has been ignored at least three times since then — all involving Russia.

The Russia-Georgia War started during Beijing 2008. And Moscow’s 2014 occupation of Crimea happened during Russia’s own Sochi Winter Olympics and Paralympics, as did its full-scale invasion of Ukraine during Beijing 2022.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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The visit comes less than a month after Congress approved a long-delayed foreign assistance package that sets aside $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, much of which will go toward replenishing badly depleted artillery and air defense systems.

On his fourth trip to Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Blinken will underscore the Biden administration’s commitment to Ukraine’s defense and long-term security, U.S. officials said. They noted that since President Joe Biden signed the aid package late last month, the administration has already announced $1.4 billion in short-term military assistance and $6 billion in longer-term support.

It is “trying to really accelerate the tempo” of U.S. weapon shipments to Ukraine, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

“What I am going to suggest is that the level of intensity being exhibited right now in terms of moving stuff is at a 10 out of 10,” Sullivan told reporters at a White House briefing Monday.

Artillery, air defense interceptors and long-range ballistic missiles have already been delivered, some of them already to the front lines, said a senior U.S. official traveling with the secretary on an overnight train from Poland.

Blinken will “send a strong signal of reassurance” to Ukrainian leaders and civil society figures he will meet during his two-day visit, said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of Blinken’s meetings.

In a statement released after Blinken’s arrival, the State Department said he would meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top Ukrainian officials “to discuss battlefield updates, the impact of new U.S. security and economic assistance, long-term security and other commitments, and ongoing work to bolster Ukraine’s economic recovery.”

Delays in U.S. assistance, particularly since Israel’s war with Hamas began to preoccupy top administration officials, triggered deep concerns in Kyiv and Europe. Blinken, for example, has visited the Middle East seven times since the Gaza conflict began in October. His last trip to Kyiv was in September.

The U.S. official added that Blinken also would give a speech later Tuesday extolling Ukraine’s “strategic successes” in the war. It is intended to complement a Blinken address last year in Helsinki, Finland, deriding Russian President Vladimir Putin for Moscow’s strategic failures in launching the war.

Since the Helsinki speech, however, Russia has intensified its attacks, most noticeably as the U.S. House sat on the aid package for months without action, forcing a suspension in the provision of most U.S. assistance. Those attacks have increased in recent weeks as Russia has sought to take advantage of Ukrainian shortages in manpower and weapons while the new assistance is in transit.

Top Biden administration officials and Ukrainian national security officials held a call Monday “about the situation on the front, about the capabilities that they are most in need of, and a real triage effort to say, ’Get us this stuff this fast so that we can be in a position to effectively defend against the Russian onslaught,” Sullivan said.

Zelenskyy said over the weekend that “fierce battles” are taking place near the border in eastern and northeastern Ukraine as outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers try to push back a significant Russian ground offensive.

The Kremlin’s forces are aiming to exploit Ukrainian weaknesses before a big batch of new military aid for Kyiv from the U.S. and European partners arrives on the battlefield in the coming weeks and months, Ukrainian commanders and analysts say. That makes this period a window of opportunity for Moscow and one of the most dangerous for Kyiv in the two-year war, they say.

The new Russian push in the northeastern Kharkiv region and a drive into the eastern Donetsk region come after months when the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line barely budged. In the meantime, both sides have used long-range strikes in what largely became a war of attrition.

The senior U.S. official said despite some recent setbacks, Ukraine could still claim significant victories. Those include reclaiming some 50% of the territory Russian forces took in the early months of the war, boosting its economic standing and improving transportation and trade links, not least through military successes in the Black Sea.

The official acknowledged that Ukraine faces “a tough fight” and is “under tremendous pressure” but argued that Ukrainians “will become increasingly more confident” as the new U.S. and other Western assistance begins to surge.

Blinken said Sunday that there was “no doubt” the monthslong delay in aid caused problems but that “we are doing everything we can to rush this assistance out there.”

“It’s a challenging moment,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We are not going anywhere, and neither are more than some 50 countries that are supporting Ukraine. That will continue, and if Putin thinks he can outlast Ukraine, outlast its supporters, he’s wrong.’’

___

AP reporter Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed.

In line with Russian law, the entire Russian Cabinet resigned Tuesday following Putin’s glittering inauguration in the Kremlin, and most members have been widely expected to keep their jobs, while Shoigu’s fate had appeared uncertain.

Putin signed a decree on Sunday appointing Shoigu as secretary of Russia’s Security Council, the Kremlin said. The appointment was announced shortly after Putin proposed Andrei Belousov to become the country’s defense minister in place of Shoigu.

The announcement of Shoigu’s new role came as 13 people were reported dead and 20 more wounded in Russia’s border city of Belgorod, where a 10-story apartment building partially collapsed after what Russian officials said was Ukrainian shelling. Ukraine hasn’t commented on the incident.

Belousov’s candidacy will need to be approved by Russia’s upper house in parliament, the Federation Council. It reported Sunday that Putin introduced proposals for other Cabinet positions as well but Shoigu is the only minister on that list who is being replaced. Several other new candidates for federal ministers were proposed Saturday by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, reappointed by Putin on Friday.

Shoigu’s deputy, Timur Ivanov, was arrested last month on bribery charges and was ordered to remain in custody pending an official investigation. The arrest of Ivanov was widely interpreted as an attack on Shoigu and a possible precursor of his dismissal, despite his close personal ties with Putin.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday that Putin had decided to give the defense minister role to a civilian because the ministry should be “open to innovation and cutting-edge ideas.” He also said the increasing defense budget “must fit into the country’s wider economy,” and Belousov, who until recently served as the first deputy prime minister, is the right fit for the job.

Belousov, 65, held leading positions in the finances and economic department of the prime minister’s office and the Ministry of Economic Development. In 2013, he was appointed an adviser to Putin and seven years later, in January 2020, he became first deputy prime minister.

Peskov assured that the reshuffle will not affect “the military aspect,” which “has always been the prerogative of the Chief of General Staff,” and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, who currently serves in this position, will continue his work.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said in an online commentary that Shoigu’s new appointment to Russia’s Security Council showed that the Russian leader viewed the institution as “a reservoir” for his “‘former’ key figures — people who he can’t in any way let go, but doesn’t have a place for.”

Figures such as former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have also been appointed to the security council. Medvedev has served as the body’s deputy chairman since 2020.

Shoigu was appointed to the Security Council instead of Nikolai Patrushev, Putin’s long-term ally. Peskov said Sunday that Patrushev is taking on another role, and promised to reveal details in the coming days.

Shoigu has been widely seen as a key figure in Putin’s decision to send Russian troops into Ukraine. Russia had expected the operation to quickly overwhelm Ukraine’s much smaller and less-equipped army and for Ukrainians to broadly welcome Russian troops.

Instead, the conflict galvanized Ukraine to mount an intense defense, dealing the Russian army humiliating blows, including the retreat from an attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, and a counteroffensive that drove Moscow’s forces out of the Kharkiv region.

Before he was named defense minister in 2012, Shoigu spent more than 20 years directing markedly different work: In 1991, he was appointed head of the Russian Rescue Corps disaster-response agency, which eventually became the Ministry of Emergency Situations. He became highly visible in the post. The job also allowed him to be named a general even though he had no military service behind him as the rescue corps absorbed the militarized Civil Defense Troops.

Shoigu does not wield the same kind of power as Patrushev, who has long been the country’s top security official. But the position he will take — the same position that Patrushev worked to transform from a minor bureaucratic role to a place of sizable influence — will still carry some authority, according to Mark Galeotti, head of the Mayak Intelligence consultancy.

High-level security materials intended for the president’s eyes will still pass through the Security Council Secretariat, even with changes at the top. “You can’t just institutionally turn around a bureaucracy and how it works overnight,” he said.

Thousands of civilians have fled Russia’s renewed ground offensive in Ukraine’s northeast that has targeted towns and villages with a barrage of artillery and mortar shelling, officials said Sunday.

The intense battles have forced at least one Ukrainian unit to withdraw in the Kharkiv region, capitulating more land to Russian forces across less defended settlements in the so-called contested gray zone along the Russian border.

By Sunday afternoon, the town of Vovchansk, among the largest in the northeast with a prewar population of 17,000, emerged as a focal point in the battle.

Volodymyr Tymoshko, the head of the Kharkiv regional police, said that Russian forces were on the outskirts of the town and approaching from three directions.

An Associated Press team, positioned in a nearby village, saw plumes of smoke rising from the town as Russian forces hurled shells. Evacuation teams worked nonstop throughout the day to take residents, most of whom were older, out of harm’s way.

At least 4,000 civilians have fled the Kharkiv region since Friday, when Moscow’s forces launched the operation, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said in a social media statement. Heavy fighting raged Sunday along the northeast front line, where Russian forces attacked 27 settlements in the past 24 hours, he said.

Analysts say the Russian push is designed to exploit ammunition shortages before promised Western supplies can reach the front line.

Ukrainian soldiers said the Kremlin is using the usual Russian tactic of launching a disproportionate amount of fire and infantry assaults to exhaust Ukrainian troops and firepower. By intensifying battles in what was previously a static patch of the front line, Russian forces threaten to pin down Ukrainian forces in the northeast, while carrying out intense battles farther south where Moscow is also gaining ground.

It comes after Russia stepped up attacks in March targeting energy infrastructure and settlements, which analysts predicted were a concerted effort to shape conditions for an offensive.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces had captured four villages on the border along Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, in addition to five villages reported to have been seized on Saturday. These areas were likely poorly fortified because of the dynamic fighting and constant heavy shelling, easing a Russian advance.

Ukraine’s leadership hasn’t confirmed Moscow’s gains. But Tymoshko, the head of the Kharkiv regional police, said that Strilecha, Pylna and Borsivika were under Russian occupation, and it was from their direction they were bringing in infantry to stage attacks in other embattled villages of Hlyboke and Lukiantsi.

___

Associated Press writers Samya Kullab in Kyiv, Ukraine; Vasilisa Stepanenko in Vilcha, Ukraine; Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, and Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

The officials said the aid package will be funded through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays for longer-term contracts with the defense industry and means that it could take many months or years for the weapons to arrive. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

The new funding — the largest tranche of USAI aid sent to date – will include a wide array of munitions for air defense, such as the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAM) and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), as well as the Patriot munitions, Switchblade and Puma drones, counter drone systems and artillery.

The announcement is expected to come as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin convenes a virtual meeting on Friday of defense officials from Europe and around the world to discuss international aid for Ukraine. The gathering — created by Austin and known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group — has been meeting about monthly for the past two years, and is the primary forum for weapons contributions to Kyiv for the war.

news Apr 25

Russian strikes hit Ukrainian critical infrastructure; Macron warns ‘our Europe could die'

Congress Apr 24

Biden signs a $95 billion war aid measure with assistance for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan

It follows the White House decision earlier this week to approve the delivery of $1 billion in weapons and equipment to Ukraine. Those weapons include a variety of ammunition, including air defense munitions and large amounts of artillery rounds that are much in demand by Ukrainian forces, as well as armored vehicles and other weapons.

That aid, however, will get to Ukraine quickly because it is being pulled off Pentagon shelves, including in warehouses in Europe.

The large back-to-back packages are the result of the new infusion of about $61 billion in funding for Ukraine that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on Wednesday. And they provide weapons Kyiv desperately needs to stall gains being made by Russian forces in the war.

Bitterly divided members of Congress deadlocked over the funding for months, forcing House Speaker Mike Johnson to cobble together a bipartisan coalition to pass the bill. The $95 billion foreign aid package, which also included billions for Israel and Taiwan, passed the House on Saturday, and the Senate approved it Tuesday.

Senior U.S. officials have described dire battlefield conditions in Ukraine, as troops run low on munitions and Russian forces make gains.

Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, the U.S. has sent more than $44 billion worth of weapons, maintenance, training and spare parts to Ukraine.

Among the weapons provided to Ukraine were Abrams M1A1 battle tanks. But Ukraine has now sidelined them in part because Russian drone warfare has made it too difficult for them to operate without detection or coming under attack, two U.S. military officials told The Associated Press.

With overwhelming support, the $61 billion in aid for Ukraine delivered a strong showing of American backing as lawmakers race to deliver a fresh round of U.S. support to the war-torn ally. Some lawmakers cheered on the House floor and waved blue-and-yellow flags of Ukraine.

The unusual process, with each bill having its own vote, allowed unique coalitions to form around the bills, pushing them forward. The whole package will go to the Senate, where passage in the coming days is nearly assured. President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately.

“We did our work here, and I think history will judge it well,” said embattled Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who is risking his own job to marshal the package to passage.

Biden, in a statement, thanked Johnson, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and the bipartisan coalition of lawmakers “who voted to put our national security first.”

“I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law and we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs,” the president said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said he was “grateful” to both parties in the House and “personally Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track,” he said on X.

“Thank you, America!” he said on X, formerly Twitter.

The weekend scene presented a striking display of congressional action after months of dysfunction and stalemate fueled by Republicans, who hold the majority but are deeply split over foreign aid, particularly for Ukraine as it fights Russia’s invasion. Johnson relied on Democratic support to ensure the military and humanitarian package won approval.

The morning opened with a somber and serious debate and unusual sense of purpose as Republican and Democratic leaders united to urge quick approval, saying that would ensure the United States supported its allies and remained a leader on the world stage. The House’s visitor galleries crowded with onlookers.

“The eyes of the world are upon us, and history will judge what we do here and now,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee

Passage through the House cleared away the biggest hurdle to Biden’s funding request, first made in October as Ukraine’s military supplies began to run low. The GOP-controlled House struggled for months over what to do, first demanding that any assistance be tied to policy changes at the U.S.-Mexico order, only to immediately reject a bipartisan Senate offer along those very lines.

Reaching an endgame has been an excruciating lift for Johnson that has tested both his resolve and his support among Republicans, with a small but growing number now openly urging his removal from the speaker’s office. Yet congressional leaders cast the votes as a turning point in history — an urgent sacrifice as U.S. allies are beleaguered by wars and threats from continental Europe to the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific.

“Sometimes when you are living history, as we are today, you don’t understand the significance of the actions of the votes that we make on this House floor, of the effect that it will have down the road,” said New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “This is a historic moment.”

Opponents, particularly the hard-right Republicans from Johnson’s majority, argued that the U.S. should focus on the home front, addressing domestic border security and the nation’s rising debt load, and they warned against spending more money, which largely flows to American defense manufacturers, to produce weaponry used overseas.

Still, Congress has seen a stream of world leaders visit in recent months, from Zelenskyy to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, all but pleading with lawmakers to approve the aid. Globally, the delay left many questioning America’s commitment to its allies.

At stake has also been one of Biden’s top foreign policy priorities — halting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advance in Europe. After engaging in quiet talks with Johnson, the president quickly endorsed Johnson’s plan, paving the way for Democrats to give their rare support to clear the procedural hurdles needed for a final vote.

“We have a responsibility, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans to defend democracy wherever it is at risk,” Jeffries said during the debate.

Apr 20

The House votes for possible TikTok ban in the US, but don't expect the app to go away anytime soon

news Apr 19

Ukraine war updates: Ukraine says it downed strategic bomber for the first time; 8 killed in major attack by Russia

While aid for Ukraine will likely win a majority in both parties, a significant number of progressive Democrats are expected to vote against the bill aiding Israel as they demand an end to the bombardment of Gaza that has killed thousands of civilians.

At the same time, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has loomed large over the fight, weighing in from afar via social media statements and direct phone calls with lawmakers as he tilts the GOP to a more isolationist stance with his “America First” brand of politics.

Ukraine’s defense once enjoyed robust, bipartisan support in Congress, but as the war enters its third year, a bulk of Republicans oppose further aid. Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., offered an amendment to zero out the money, but it was rejected.

At one point, Trump’s opposition essentially doomed the bipartisan Senate proposal on border security. This past week, Trump also issued a social media post that questioned why European nations were not giving more money to Ukraine, though he spared Johnson from criticism and said Ukraine’s survival was important.

Still, the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus has derided the legislation as the “America Last” foreign wars package and urged lawmakers to defy Republican leadership and oppose it because the bills do not include border security measures.

Johnson’s hold on the speaker’s gavel has also grown more tenuous in recent days as three Republicans, led by Greene, supported a “motion to vacate” that can lead to a vote on removing the speaker. Egged on by far-right personalities, she is also being joined by a growing number of lawmakers including Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who is urging Johnson to voluntarily step aside, and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.

The package includes several Republican priorities that Democrats endorse, or at least are willing to accept. Those include proposals that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl; and legislation to require the China-based owner of the popular video app TikTok to sell its stake within a year or face a ban in the United States.

Still, the all-out push to get the bills through Congress is a reflection not only of politics, but realities on the ground in Ukraine. Top lawmakers on national security committees, who are privy to classified briefings, have grown gravely concerned about the situation in recent weeks. Russia has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — which allow planes to drop them from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.

At least 18 people were injured in the morning attack, the city’s acting mayor Oleksandr Lomako said. Chernihiv lies some 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the capital, Kyiv, near the border with Russia and Belarus, and has a population of around 250,000 people.

The latest Russian bombardment came as the war stretched into its third year and approached what could be a critical juncture as a lack of further military support from Ukraine’s Western partners increasingly leaves it at the mercy of the Kremlin’s bigger forces.

Through the winter months, Russia made no dramatic advance along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, focusing instead on attritional warfare. However, Ukraine’s shortage of artillery ammunition, troops and armored vehicles has allowed the Russians to gradually push forward, military analysts say.

A crucial element for Ukraine is the hold-up in Washington of approval for an aid package that includes roughly $60 billion for Ukraine. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday he will try to move the package forward this week.

Russia-Ukraine War Apr 5

Russia renews big attacks on Ukrainian power grid using ‘better intelligence and fresh tactics'

news Apr 2

A stalemate in the Ukraine war could now be the best-case scenario, analyst says

Ukraine’s need is now acute, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

“The Russians are breaking out of positional warfare and beginning to restore maneuver to the battlefield because of the delays in the provision of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine,” the ISW said in an assessment late Tuesday.

“Ukraine cannot hold the present lines now without the rapid resumption of U.S. assistance, particularly air defense and artillery that only the U.S. can provide rapidly and at scale,” it said.

Ukrainian forces are digging in, building fortifications in anticipation of a major Russian offensive that Kyiv officials say could come as early as next month.

Ukraine is using long-range drone and missile strikes behind Russian lines which are designed to disrupt Moscow’s war machine.

Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday a Ukrainian drone was shot down over the Mordovia region, roughly 350 kilometers (220 miles) east of Moscow. That is 700 kilometers (430 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Ukrainian drone developers have been extending the weapons’ range and earlier this month struck a target some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) east of Ukraine.

___

In a statement on the social media platform X, Rafael Mariano Grossi confirmed at least three direct hits against the ZNPP main reactor containment structures took place. “This cannot happen,” he said.

He said it was the first such attack since November 2022, when he set out five basic principles to avoid a serious nuclear accident with radiological consequences.

Officials at the plant said the site was attacked Sunday by Ukrainian military drones, including a strike on the dome of the plant’s sixth power unit.

According to the plant authorities, there was no critical damage or casualties and radiation levels at the plant were normal after the strikes. Later on Sunday, however, Russian state-owned nuclear agency Rosatom said that three people were wounded in the “unprecedented series of drone attacks,” specifically when a drone hit an area close to the site’s canteen.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Sunday that its experts had been informed of the drone strike and that “such detonation is consistent with IAEA observations.”

In a separate statement, the IAEA confirmed physical impact of drone attacks at the plant, including at one of its six reactors. One casualty was reported, it said.

“Damage at unit 6 has not compromised nuclear safety, but this is a serious incident with potential to undermine integrity of the reactor’s containment system” it added.

The power plant has been caught in the crossfire since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022 and seized the facility shortly after. The IAEA has repeatedly expressed alarm about the nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, amid fears of a potential nuclear catastrophe. Both Ukraine and Russia have regularly accused the other of attacking the plant, which is still close to the front lines.

The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

Also on Sunday, three people were killed when their house was hit by a Russian projectile in the front-line town of Huliaipole in Ukraine’s partly occupied southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, regional Gov. Ivan Fedorov said. Later on Sunday, two people were wounded in another shelling of Huliaipole.

Separately, three people were wounded in Russian shelling in Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region, according to regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.

In Russia, a girl died and four other people were wounded when the debris of a downed Ukrainian drone fell on a car carrying a family of six people in Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

After the deafening explosions came a cloud of smoke, then darkness. Fires blazed, and shrapnel pierced the roof of the huge complex, causing debris to rain down on workers. Following protocols, Taras shut down the coal-fired plant, his heart racing.

In the March 22 attack, Russia unleashed more than 60 exploding drones and 90 missiles across Ukraine — the worst assault on the country’s energy infrastructure since the full-scale invasion began in early 2022.

The fusillade reflected Russia’s renewed focus on striking Ukrainian energy facilities. The volume and accuracy of recent attacks have alarmed the country’s defenders, who say Kremlin forces now have better intelligence and fresh tactics in their campaign to annihilate Ukraine’s electrical grid and bring its economy to a halt. Moscow has also apparently learned how to exploit gaps in Ukrainian air defenses.

With more assaults inevitable, officials are scrambling for ways to better defend the country’s energy assets.

The March 22 attack — which left 1.9 million people without power, according to analysts — was among the most intense in Russia’s springtime air campaign targeting civilian infrastructure.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, lost 80% of its power generation capacity in attacks on March 22 and 29, the company said. Plants were destroyed across the country. Russia targeted transmission networks as well.

The bombardment blacked out large parts of Ukraine — a level of darkness not seen since the first days of the full-scale invasion. The strikes also tested Ukraine’s ability to make quick repairs.

news Apr 2

A stalemate in the Ukraine war could now be the best-case scenario, analyst says

Russia-Ukraine War Mar 24

Poland demands explanation from Russia after a missile enters its airspace during attack on Ukraine

The Associated Press was given access to two DTEK power plants damaged in the March 22 attack on the condition that the names and locations of the facilities and the full names of workers not be mentioned due to security concerns. The AP was not permitted to provide technical details of damage, including the number of missiles that struck each plant or whether the plant could still function.

After previous assaults, power station workers were able to restore service fairly quickly. But that became harder after March 22 because of continuing strikes that prevent rebuilding.

The Kharkiv region, which borders Russia and was the hardest hit, is still enduring power outages weeks later. On Thursday, drones struck the region’s Zmiivska power plant, plunging 350,000 people into the dark.

“They are trying to take us back to the 17th century,” said Serhii, a manager in one of the power plants that was attacked.

Maksym Timchenko, the CEO of DTEK, inspected the grounds of one of the two power stations. Gazing up at the titanic complex, his eyes rested on a gaping hole in the building’s scorched facade.

Inside, workers collected debris in wheelbarrows, their faces blackened by floating dust. Cranes removed giant shards of twisted metal and blocks of fallen concrete. In the dark bowels of the plant’s interior, where an intricate network of large pipes connect to industrial boilers, the steel roof was so pockmarked with shrapnel it resembled a starry night sky.

“I’ve never seen in my life this level of destruction in a power station, and unfortunately it happened to us,” Timchenko said.

He estimates that the company can restore half of the damaged units in two to three months. It’s a Sisyphean task: Workers must repair damage over and over again.

This particular plant was targeted late last year, and one unit was destroyed. Timchenko said DTEK planned to repair it by the end of this year.

“But now the same level of destruction has happened to several power units,” he said, bringing the plant and the company’s strategic plans back to square one.

During the agonizing wait for more strikes, Ukrainian officials are discussing how to better protect power generators. One solution may be decentralizing them by creating a network of small facilities that are harder to hit than large plants.

The timing of the attacks perplexed many observers.

Russia usually reserves large-scale attacks on energy infrastructure for the peak winter months, when demand for heat is highest. A spring campaign suggests Russia was behind schedule in unleashing new tactics, said Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Kyiv-based Energy Industry Research Center.

“I am absolutely sure that they wanted to do this one month before,” he said.

Russia, as expected, targeted energy infrastructure in the last three months of last year, when temperatures dropped below freezing. But the high-voltage grid was prepared to sustain the attacks, and damaged sites were quickly repaired. In December, Russia accepted that the old tactics were not working.

As the winter months went by, Russia began concocting a new scheme.

“They did a huge intelligence job,” Kharchenko said, pointing to the precise nature of the attacks and the damage done. The Russian military seemed to “know everything about the current status of many energy infrastructure objects,” including their defenses.

Once the targets were chosen, Russia swarmed them with missiles at an unprecedented scale. If before they launched three drones and two missiles per target, now they send six missiles and up to 15 drones, he said.

Air-defense systems could not stop everything. “It was too much,” he said.

Before the March 22 attacks, workers operated under the assumption that air defenses would take down 70% of air attacks. The strikes that got through often fell on the periphery of the plant, said Serhii, a plant manager.

“But now the circle is smaller and smaller, reaching our power units and control rooms,” Serhii said.

The result is dire. According to Kharchenko’s figures, Ukraine lost up to 15 percent of its power generation. That means, for now, it cannot cover the demand expected during the peak summer months of July and August.

In the aftermath of the attack on his power station, Taras was traumatized more by the scale of the destruction than the explosions that caused it.

“I wasn’t scared at first, but we got scared when we saw the consequences,” he said.

On the night of March 22, an injured worker was brought into the control room as fires blazed across the complex.

“With one hand, we conducted the shutdown, with the other we bandaged his injured leg,” he said. They left the plant using flashlights to navigate through pitch darkness.

“If the skies were protected, I would feel calmer,” he said. “Power infrastructure is something everything depends on. If there’s no power, nothing works: Plants don’t work. People are left without internet. You won’t even know when the missiles are flying at you.”

___

Associated Press journalist Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.

It was Russia’s third big missile attack on Ukraine in the past four days, and the second to target the capital, Kyiv.

The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, said Russia used cruise missiles launched from Tu-95MS strategic bombers. An air alert in the capital lasted for more than two hours as rockets entered Kyiv in groups from the north.

He said the attacks were launched from the Engels district in the Saratov region of Russia.

According to preliminary data, there were no casualties or damage in the capital, he said.

Armed Forces Operational Command of Poland, a member of NATO, said in a statement that there was a violation of Polish airspace at 4:23 a.m. (0323 GMT) by one of the cruise missiles launched by Russia against towns in western Ukraine.

The object entered near Oserdow, a village in an agricultural region near the border with Ukraine, and stayed in Polish airspace for 39 seconds, the statement said. It wasn’t immediately clear if Russia intended for the missile to enter Poland’s airspace. Cruise missiles are able to change their trajectory to evade air defense systems.

Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz later told reporters in a televised news conference that the Russian missile would have been shot down had there been any indication that it was heading towards a target in Poland.

He said that Polish authorities monitored the attack on Ukraine and was in contact with Ukrainian counterparts. Polish and NATO F-16s were activated as part of the strategic response.

He said the missile penetrated Polish airspace about a kilometer or two (a half-mile to around a mile) as Russia was targeting the region around Lviv in western Ukraine.

“As last night’s rocket attack on Ukraine was one of the most intense since the beginning of the Russian aggression, all the strategic procedures were launched on time and the object was monitored until it left the Polish airspace,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, the Polish foreign ministry said that it would “demand explanations from the Russian Federation in connection with another violation of the country’s airspace.”

“Above all, we call on the Russian Federation to stop the terrorist air attacks on the inhabitants and territory of Ukraine, end the war, and address the country’s internal problems,” the statement read.

Andrzej Szejna, a deputy foreign minister, told the TVN24 broadcaster that the foreign ministry intended to summon the Russian ambassador to Poland and hand him a protest note.

Henryk Zdyb, the head of the village of Oserdow, said in an interview with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza that he saw the missile, saying it produced a whistling sound.

“I saw a rapidly moving object in the sky. It was illuminated and flying quite low over the border with Ukraine,” he told the paper.

Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago, there have been a number of intrusions into Polish airspace, triggering worry in the European Union and NATO member state and reminding people of how close the war is.

“We have to come to terms with the fact that the war is taking place right next to us, and we are part of the confrontation between the West and Russia,” commentator Artur Bartkiewicz wrote in the Rzeczpospolita newspaper Sunday.

In 2022, two Poles were killed in a missile blast. Western officials blamed those deaths on a Ukrainian air defense missile that went astray, but also accused Russia of culpability because it started the war, with the Ukrainian missiles launched in self-defense.

On Saturday night, one person was killed and four others were wounded in a Ukrainian missile attack on Sevastopol on the Russia-occupied Crimean Peninsula, city Gov. Mikhail Razvozhaev said on his Telegram channel.

A mega-yacht seized by U.S. authorities from a Russian oligarch is costing the government nearly $1 million a month to maintain, according to new court filings.

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking permission to sell a 348-foot yacht called Amadea, which it seized in 2022, alleging that it was owned by sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov. The government said it wants to sell the $230 million yacht due to the “excessive costs” of maintenance and crew, which it said could total $922,000 a month.

“It is excessive for taxpayers to pay nearly a million dollars per month to maintain the Amadea when these expenses could be reduced to zero through [a] sale,” according to a court filing by U.S. prosecutors on Friday.

The monthly charges for Amadea, which is now docked in San Diego, California, include $600,000 per month in running costs: $360,000 for the crew; $75,000 for fuel; and $165,000 for maintenance, waste removal, food and other expenses. They also include $144,000 in monthly pro-rata insurance costs and special charges including dry-docking fees, at $178,000, bringing the total to $922,000, according to the filings.

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The battle over Amadea and the costs to the government highlight the financial and legal challenges of seizing and selling assets owned by Russian oligarchs after the country’s invasion of Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week that the European Union should use profits from more than $200 billion of frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort.

Her comments echoed government calls in the spring of 2022 to freeze the yachts, private jets and mansions of Russian billionaires in hopes of putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and raising money for the war effort.

Yet, nearly two years later, the legal process for proving ownership of the Russian assets and selling them has proven to be far more time-consuming and costly. In London, Russian billionaire Eugene Shvidler has waged a court battle over his private jets that were impounded, and Sergei Naumenko has been appealing the detention of his superyacht Phi.

The battle over Amadea began in April 2022, when it was seized in Fiji at the request of the U.S. government, according to the court filings.

Though the U.S. alleges that the yacht is owned by Kerimov, who made his fortune in mining, attorneys for Eduard Khudainatov, an ex-Rosneft CEO who has not been sanctioned, say he owns the yacht, and have sought to take back possession of the vessel.

In court filings, Khudainatov’s attorneys have objected to the U.S. government’s efforts to sell the yacht, saying a rushed sale could lead to a distressed sale price and that the maintenance costs are minor relative to the potential sale value.

Khudainatov’s attorneys refuse to pay the ongoing maintenance costs as long as the government pursues a sale and forfeiture. However, they say their client will reimburse the U.S. government for the more than $20 million already spent to maintain the yacht if it’s returned to its proper owner.

In court papers, the government says Kerimov disguised his ownership of Amadea through a series of shell companies and other owners. They say emails between crew members show Kerimov “was the beneficial owner of the yacht, irrespective of the titleholder of the vessel.”

The emails show that Kerimov and his family ordered several interior improvements of the yacht, including a new pizza oven and spa, and that between 2021 and 2022, when the boat was seized, “there were no guest trips on the Amadea that did not include either Kerimov or his family members,” according to the court filings.

The government also says Kerimov has been trying to sell Amadea for years, so a sale would be in keeping with his intent.

“This is not a situation in which a court would be ordering sale of a precious heirloom that a claimant desperately wishes to keep for sentimental reasons,” the government said in filings.

Even if Amadea were sold quickly, the proceeds wouldn’t automatically go to the government. Under law, the money would be held while Khudainatov and the government continue their battle in court over the ownership and forfeiture.

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Authorities in the South Asian island nation said this week they were canceling long-term tourist visa extensions — a move that coincides with outrage over what appeared to be a “whites only” event organized by a Russian-run nightclub in a popular resort town.

But the debt-stricken island’s president raised doubts over whether his government would go through with the cancellations, which would threaten a much-needed source of tourist income.

Russian and Ukrainian tourists must leave Sri Lanka by March 7 after the expiration of their final free visa extension, according to a notice issued by the Tourism Development Authority. The Immigration Department had said last month that the visas were being extended due to the “non-operation of airlines in the region.”

However, President Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered an investigation into the notice, saying the visas could not be canceled without cabinet approval.

“The Govt hasn’t officially decided to revoke visa extensions previously granted to these tourists,” his office said Sunday in a post on X.

Facing sweeping travel restrictions after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, many Russians flocked to Sri Lanka when it offered near-indefinite stays. Russia became Sri Lanka’s largest source of tourists after nearby India last year.

Nearly 200,000 Russians and 5,000 Ukrainians visited the country of 22 million last year, official Sri Lankan tourism department data showed.

It’s unclear how many of those remained in the country beyond the usual duration of a tourist visa, which is 30 days. But thousands are believed to have remained — including those seeking to avoid being drafted into the military — and some have set up restaurants and nightclubs.

It is also unclear whether the end of the visa extensions was related to the recent outcry, but one of those nightclubs was at the center of the outrage over a planned party.

A poster advertising a “White Party” last weekend at the Sarayka Lounge in Unawatuna, a coastal town about 3 miles from the southern tourist hub of Galle, specified a white dress code as is typical for such events.

But the poster, which was shared widely on social media and seen by NBC News, also included a line that said “Face Control: White,” drawing outrage from social media users who interpreted it to mean that only white people could attend the event.

Three Russian DJs were expected to play at the event, according to the poster.

In a post on Instagram last Friday, the bar said it had canceled the event and “will never support various racist statements or organizations.”

A user who claimed to be one of the party’s organizers apologized on Instagram, saying “There was no malice or racism in this.”

“We were sitting in a cafe and discussing that people living far from their homeland have a lot in common and it would be great to gather everyone in one place,” the user, @geo_ecstatic, said.

“We wanted to meet expats who have been living here for a long time and love Sri Lanka,” the user said, adding that he and his family had to leave the island due to abuse and threats arising from “this stupid idea of making a white party.”

In a statement about the “controversial night event,” the Russian Embassy in Colombo said, “according to unconfirmed data, the main promoter as well as the owners of a bar who agreed to accommodate the party are Russian citizens.”

Russia “strongly condemns all forms of racial discrimination,” it added, calling on its citizens to follow local laws and customs.

Sri Lanka has been struggling with an economic crisis since declaring bankruptcy two years ago with more than $83 billion in debt. More than half of that debt is owed to foreign creditors, with the worsening living conditions in the country leading to widespread protests and the ousting of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022.

Since then, the new administration has been pulling out all the stops to raise more cash, including a bailout by the International Monetary Fund and an increase in taxes and prices for electricity and fuel. 

The increased cost of living has pushed some Sri Lankans to the streets again, with the police resorting to tear gas to quell a protest in the country’s capital, Colombo, last month.

Sri Lanka has also tapped into tourism, providing 30-day visas with multiple extensions of up to six months, with Russians and Ukrainians receiving even more due to the war in Ukraine.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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The U.S. Treasury, State Department and Commerce Department plan Friday to impose roughly 600 new sanctions on Russia and its war machine in the largest single tranche of penalties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. They come on the heels of a series of new arrests and indictments announced by the Justice Department on Thursday that target Russian businessmen, including the head of Russia’s second-largest bank, and their middlemen in five separate federal cases.

The European Union announced Friday that it is imposing sanctions on several foreign companies over allegations that they have exported dual-use goods to Russia that could be used in its war against Ukraine. The 27-nation bloc also said that it was targeting scores of Russian officials, including “members of the judiciary, local politicians and people responsible for the illegal deportation and military re-education of Ukrainian children.”

President Joe Biden said the sanctions come in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “brutal war of conquest” and to Navalny’s death, at a gathering of U.S. governors at the White House. “We in the United States are going to continue to ensure that Putin pays a price for his aggression abroad and repression at home,” Biden said.

While previous sanctions have increased costs for Russia’s ability to fight in Ukraine, they appear to have done little so far to deter Putin. The Biden administration is levying additional sanctions as House Republicans are blocking billions of dollars in additional aid to Ukraine.

The war is becoming entangled in U.S. election-year politics, with former President Donald Trump voicing skepticism about the benefits of the NATO alliance and saying that he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to countries that, in his view, are not pulling their weight in the alliance.

Biden on Friday called on Congress to pass Ukraine aide, which has stalled since House Speaker Mike Johnson blocked votes for packages passed by the Senate for Ukraine and other countries. “Russia is taking Ukraine territory for the first time in many months,” Biden said. “But here in America, the speaker gave the house a two week vacation. They have to come back and get this done, because failure to support Ukraine in this critical moment will never be forgotten in history.”

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Many of the new U.S. sanctions announced Friday target Russian firms that contribute to the Kremlin’s war effort — including drone and industrial chemical manufacturers and machine tool importers — as well as financial institutions, such as the state-owned operator of Russia’s Mir National Payment System.

In response to Navalny’s death, the State Department is designating three Russian officials the U.S. says are connected to his death. It also will impose visa restrictions on Russian authorities it says are involved in the kidnapping and confinement of Ukrainian children.

In addition, 26 third-country people and firms from across China, Serbia, the United Arab Emirates, and Liechtenstein are listed for sanctions, for assisting Russia in evading existing financial penalties.

The Russian foreign ministry said the EU sanctions are “illegal” and undermine “the international legal prerogatives of the UN Security Council.” In response, the ministry is banning some EU citizens from entering the country because they have provided military assistance to Ukraine. It did not immediately address the U.S. sanctions.

The U.S. specifically was to target individuals associated with Navalny’s imprisonment a day after Biden met with the opposition leader’s widow and daughter in California. It was also hitting “Russia’s financial sector, defense industrial base, procurement networks and sanctions evaders across multiple continents,” Biden said. “They will ensure Putin pays an even steeper price for his aggression abroad and repression at home.”

The EU asset freezes and travel bans constitute the 13th package of measures imposed by the bloc against people and organizations it suspects of undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

“Today, we are further tightening the restrictive measures against Russia’s military and defense sector,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. “We remain united in our determination to dent Russia’s war machine and help Ukraine win its legitimate fight for self-defense.”

In all, 106 more officials and 88 “entities” — often companies, banks, government agencies or other organizations — have been added to the bloc’s sanctions list, bringing the tally of those targeted to more than 2,000 people and entities, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and his associates.

Companies making electronic components, which the EU believes could have military as well as civilian uses, were among 27 entities accused of “directly supporting Russia’s military and industrial complex in its war of aggression against Ukraine,” a statement said.

Those companies — some of them based in India, Sri Lanka, China, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Thailand and Turkey — face tougher export restrictions.

The bloc said the companies “have been involved in the circumvention of trade restrictions,” and it accuses others of “the development, production and supply of electronic components” destined to help Russia’s armed forces.

Some of the measures are aimed at depriving Russia of parts for pilotless drones, which are seen by military experts as key to the war.

Since the start of the war, U.S. Treasury and State departments have designated over 4,000 officials, oligarchs, firms, banks and others under Russia-related sanctions authorities. A $60 per barrel price cap has also been imposed on Russian oil by Group of Seven allies, intended to reduce Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels.

Critics of the sanctions, price cap and other measures meant to stop Russia’s invasion say they are not working fast enough.

Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that primarily sanctioning Russia’s defense industry and failing to cut meaningfully into Russia’s energy revenues will not be enough to halt the war.

“One way or another, they will have to eventually address Russia’s oil revenues and have to consider an oil embargo,” Snegovaya said. “The oil price cap has effectively stopped working.”

Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo, in previewing the new sanctions, told reporters that the U.S. and its allies will not lower the price cap; “rather what we’ll be doing is taking actions that will increase the cost” of Russia’s production of oil.

He added that “sanctions alone are not enough to carry Ukraine to victory.”

“We owe the Ukrainian people who have held on for so long the support and resources they desperately need to defend their homeland and prove Putin wrong once and for all time.”

__

Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Zeke Miller in Washington and Emma Burrows in London contributed to this report.

The visit comes on the eve of the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

For months, Zelenskyy has warned the U.S. and other allies that his military is running out of weapons. Without an emergency infusion of aid, he said, Russia will try to get the upper hand, according to NBC News.

Last week, Ukraine withdrew from the city of Avdiivka, a key battleground on the war front.

But U.S. aid for Ukraine has been stalled in Congress since late last year. On Feb. 13, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan; the lopsided vote was 70-29. But House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has refused to put the Senate package on the House floor, saying Congress needs to protect the southern border and enact tough, new border policies before supplying Ukraine with more aid.

Earlier this month, a group of bipartisan Senate negotiators struck a deal on stricter asylum and border policies — an agreement that was endorsed by Senate leaders in both parties. But Republicans quickly abandoned the deal after former President Donald Trump and his congressional allies blasted it for not going far enough.

In a statement Friday, Schumer laid out four objectives of the visit: to show the Ukrainian people that America supports them and will fight to get the aid; to demonstrate the U.S. is not deserting NATO and its European allies; to learn about the weapons Ukraine needs and what advantages Russia would gain if the arms are not delivered; and to recognize “there will be severe political, diplomatic, economic and military consequences that will significantly hurt the American people” if the U.S. abandons its allies.

“When we return to Washington, we will make clear to Speaker Johnson — and others in Congress who are obstructing military and economic support — exactly what is at stake here in Ukraine and for the rest of Europe and the free world,” Schumer said in the statement.

“We will keep working to ensure Congress steps up, does the right thing, and delivers help for our friends and allies.”

The four Democrats joining Schumer’s congressional delegation, known as a CODEL, are: Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed of Rhode Island; Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a member of Reed’s panel; Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, a member of the Intelligence Committee; and Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, chair of the Homeland Security subcommittee on Emerging Threats.

In December, Zelenskyy traveled to Washington, where he appealed directly to Johnson, Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other congressional leaders for more aid.

“President Zelenskyy’s message was direct: Ukraine will win the war against Russia if more aid is approved. But his message to the contrary was also true: If no more aid is approved, Putin will win,” Schumer, of New York, said after the Dec. 12 meeting. “Ukraine, the West, the United States’ strength as a credible ally are all hanging in the balance right now.”

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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The SBU said late Saturday that five people have been charged, with one person detained while trying to cross the Ukrainian border. If found guilty, they face up to 12 years in prison.

The investigation comes as Kyiv attempts to clamp down on corruption in a bid to speed up its membership in the European Union and NATO. Officials from both blocs have demanded widespread anti-graft reforms before Kyiv can join them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected on an anti-corruption platform in 2019, long before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Both the president and his aides have portrayed the recent firings of top officials, notably that of Ivan Bakanov, former head of the State Security Service, in July 2022, as proof of their efforts to crack down on graft.

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Security officials say that the current investigation dates back to August 2022, when officials signed a contract for artillery shells worth 1.5 billion hryvnias ($39.6 million) with arms firm Lviv Arsenal.

After receiving payment, company employees were supposed to transfer the funds to a business registered abroad, which would then deliver the ammunition to Ukraine.

However, the goods were never delivered and the money was instead sent to various accounts in Ukraine and the Balkans, investigators said. Ukraine’s prosecutor general says that the funds have since been seized and will be returned to the country’s defense budget.

Video of the crash on social media from the Belgorod border region of Russia showed a plane falling from the sky in a snowy, rural area, and a massive ball of fire erupting where it apparently hit the ground.

The Associated Press could not confirm who was aboard or other details on what brought the plane down. Throughout the 700-day war, Russia and Ukraine have traded conflicting accusations, and establishing the facts has often been difficult, both because of the constraints of a war zone and because each side tightly controls information.

In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said the Il-76 transport plane was carrying 65 POWs, a crew of six and three Russian servicemen. It said Russian radar registered the launch of two missiles from Ukraine’s Kharkiv region that borders Belgorod.

“We’ve seen the reports, but we’re not in any position to confirm them,” U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Separately, a U.S. official said it’s not clear that there were actually Ukrainian POWs aboard the aircraft that crashed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been announced publicly.

Hours after the crash, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine made no mention of the crash in a statement. But it added that Ukraine targets Russian military transport planes believed to be delivering missiles, especially near the border.

Russia lost two warplanes and two helicopters in its own airspace in one day in May 2023. Kyiv officials initially denied involvement but later said they had used Patriot missiles to hit the aircraft.

The Kharkiv and Belgorod regions have long been a focus of the fighting between the neighbors, including airstrikes with missiles and drones.

First responders rushed to the crash site in the Korochansky district of Belgorod, state news agency Tass reported, citing an emergency services official. The Defense Ministry in Moscow said a military commission was headed to the scene.

The Russian military said the POWs were being flown to the region for a prisoner swap when the plane was downed at 11:15 a.m. local time (0815 GMT; 3:15 a.m. EST). The Il-76 is designed to carry up to 225 troops, cargo, military equipment and weapons, according to Russia’s military export agency.

Ukrainian military intelligence confirmed a swap was due to take place but said it had no information about who was on the crashed Russian plane. Moscow did not ask for specific airspace to be kept safe for a certain length of time, as has happened in past exchanges, it said in a statement.

At a news conference at the United Nations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for an emergency meeting later Wednesday of the Security Council, saying he has “no concern” about the international community believing Moscow’s allegations.

But the council already has a meeting scheduled to hear from many countries that didn’t get to speak at Tuesday’s ministerial meeting on the Israeli-Hamas war, and France, which holds the council presidency, indicated the emergency meeting will take place Thursday.

Russian officials and lawmakers questioned whether there should be further prisoner swaps between Moscow and Kyiv. The most recent one, b rokered by the United Arab Emirates, took place this month and was the biggest to date, with 230 Ukrainian POWs returning home and 248 Russians released. It was the first in almost five months and the 49th of the war.

Russia has largely ensured its air dominance during the war against Ukraine’s fleet of Soviet-era warplanes. But Russia has suffered a series of crashes that some observers have attributed to a higher number of flights amid the fighting in Ukraine.

At the same time, Kyiv has boasted of shooting down two Russian command and control planes, which would be a major feat for Ukraine if true. Cross-border attacks on Russia’s Belgorod region also have increased, with the deadliest one killing 25 people in December.

Shortly before the crash, Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said on his Telegram channel a “missile alert” had been triggered in the region.

Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said it was looking into the crash but did not immediately provide any information. Instead, it cautioned against sharing “unverified information.”

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“We emphasize that the enemy is actively conducting information special operations against Ukraine aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian society,” it said in a statement on Telegram.

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in the morning that he could not comment on the crash because he didn’t have enough information about it. There was no comment from the Kremlin later in the day.

The war’s 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) front line has been largely static amid a second winter of fighting. As both sides seek to replenish their weapons stockpiles, the war recently has focused on long-range strikes.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a major Russian missile attack on Tuesday had killed 18 people and injured 130.

The barrage, employing more than 40 ballistic, cruise, anti-aircraft and guided missiles hit 130 residential buildings in three Ukrainian cities, “all ordinary houses,” Zelenskyy said on X, formerly Twitter.

Russia’s onslaught, which included targets in Kyiv and the second-largest city of Kharkiv, was the heaviest in weeks and lent weight to Zelenskyy’s appeals for Western allies to provide more military aid.

“This year, the main priority is to strengthen air defense to protect our cities and towns, as well as defend front-line positions,” Zelenskyy posted Tuesday.

Analysts say Russia has stockpiled missiles to pursue a winter of aerial bombardment, while Ukraine has sought to strike inside Russia with new types of drones.

Russia may have employed decoy missiles in Tuesday’s attack in an effort to open up holes in Ukraine’s air defenses, a U.S. think tank said.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Moscow is likely trying to acquire more ballistic missiles from foreign countries, including Iran and North Korea, because they may be more effective in some circumstances.

A further barrage of Russian S-300 missiles struck residential districts of Kharkiv late Tuesday, injuring nine people and damaging residential buildings, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.

Russia denies its forces strike civilian areas, although there is substantial evidence to the contrary.

Also on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down four Ukrainian drones in the Oryol region of western Russia. Oryol Mayor Yuri Parakhin said that several drones were downed over the city with no casualties.

Another Ukrainian drone was downed early Wednesday over the Belgorod border region, according to Gladkov. He said there were no casualties or damage.

Two Ukrainian drones were downed over the Bryansk region in the evening, said Gov. Alexander Bogomaz.

Ukraine’s allies have promised more military aid even though their resources are stretched. Help from the United States, by far Ukraine’s single biggest provider, has also hit political snags.

The German Defense Ministry said Wednesday it plans to send six Sea King Mk41 helicopters to Ukraine.

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The exercises come as Russia’s war on Ukraine bogs down. NATO as an organization is not directly involved in the conflict, except to supply Kyiv with non-lethal support, although many member countries send weapons and ammunition individually or in groups, and provide military training.

In the months before President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022, NATO began beefing up security on its eastern flank with Russia and Ukraine. It’s the alliance’s biggest buildup since the Cold War. The war games are meant to deter Russia from targeting a member country.

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The exercises – dubbed Steadfast Defender 24 – “will show that NATO can conduct and sustain complex multi-domain operations over several months, across thousands of kilometers (miles), from the High North to Central and Eastern Europe, and in any condition,” the 31-nation organization said.

Troops will be moving to and through Europe until the end of May in what NATO describes as “a simulated emerging conflict scenario with a near-peer adversary.” Under NATO’s new defense plans, its chief adversaries are Russia and terrorist organizations.

“The alliance will demonstrate its ability to reinforce the Euro-Atlantic area via transatlantic movement of forces from North America,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, U.S. General Christopher Cavoli, told reporters.

Cavoli said it will demonstrate “our unity, our strength, and our determination to protect each other.”

The chair of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, said that it’s “a record number of troops that we can bring to bear and have an exercise within that size, across the alliance, across the ocean from the U.S. to Europe.”

Bauer described it as “a big change” compared to troop numbers exercising just a year ago. Sweden, which is expected to join NATO this year, will also take part.

U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps has said that the government in London would send 20,000 troops backed by advanced fighter jets, surveillance planes, warships and submarines, with many being deployed in eastern Europe from February to June.

Zelenskyy will endeavor to keep his country’s long and largely stalemated defense against Russia on the minds of political leaders, just as Israel’s war with Hamas, which passed the 100-day mark this week, has siphoned off much of the world’s attention and sparked concerns about a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Tuesday’s activities got rolling with a dizzying array of subjects in rooms at the Davos conference center, where discussions tackled issues as diverse as innovation in Europe, the economic impact of generative AI, corporate support for clean technologies and the interest-rate environment.

Conversations with the prime ministers of Qatar and Jordan will bookend the day’s most visible events, with speeches by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the United States national security adviser Jake Sullivan in between.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said the concentration on the attacks on ships in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthi rebels — which have spurred retaliatory strikes by the U.S. and Britain — was “focusing on the symptoms and not treating the real issue” of Israel’s war on Hamas.

“We should focus on the main conflict in Gaza. And as soon as it’s defused, I believe everything else will be defused,” he said, adding that a two-state solution was required to end the conflict.

Sheikh Mohammed also warned a military confrontation “will not contain” the Houthi attacks.

“I think that what we have right now in the region is a recipe of escalation everywhere,” he added.

Li, the Chinese premier, focused on pitching the country as a place to invest, noting that “we are opening wide our embrace.” He said China’s economy is estimated to have grown about 5.2% last year, exceeding the target it had set of 5%.

China’s economy, for decades a leading engine of global expansion, has struggled since COVID-19 restrictions, with high youth unemployment and its overbuilt property market imploding.

Li gave veiled criticizism of U.S. restrictions on China’s ability to buy advanced computer chips used in everything from cellphones to washing machines.

“Technology’s achievements should be used to benefit all humankind and it should not be used as a method to limit, to suppress another country,” Li said.

Von der Leyen, for her part, reiterated that the EU doesn’t want to break from Beijing — one of its most important trade partners — but to ease the risks of relying too heavily on it because “we have issues when it comes to access to the market, when it comes to a level playing field, when it comes to economic security.”

She noted China’s export controls on metals used in computer chips, solar cells and more.

For the U.S., Sullivan said no when The Associated Press asked whether he would meet with China’s delegation as he headed into talks with Zelenskyy and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Zelenskyy, once reticent about leaving his war-torn country, has recently gone on a whirlwind tour to try to rally support for Ukraine’s cause against Russia amid donor fatigue in the West and concerns that former U.S. President Donald Trump — who touted having good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin — might return to the White House next year following his commanding win Monday in the Iowa caucuses.

It is Zelenskyy’s first trip to Davos as president after speaking by video in previous years, and he’s drawn the attention of media and others trying to grab a word from him — while he’s surrounded by a large contingent of security.

He hopes to parlay the high visibility of the event into a bully pulpit to showcase Ukraine’s pressing needs, and allies will be lining up: Corporate chiefs and officials like von der Leyen learned what support was needed to help Ukraine rebuild at an invitation-only “CEOs for Ukraine” session.

“It’s time for us, for Ukrainian companies, for international companies to rebuild (the) Ukrainian economy,” Maxim Timchenko, CEO of Ukrainian energy company DTEK said after the session. “To rely on ourselves. To build a future for Ukraine.”

In her speech, Von der Leyen painted an optimistic view of the war in Ukraine despite the stalemate on the battlefield. She said Russia has “lost half of its military capabilities,” while Ukraine regained half the ground it had originally lost early in the invasion.

A day earlier, Zelenskyy made a stop in Switzerland’s capital, Bern, where President Viola Amherd pledged her country would start working with Ukraine to help organize a “peace summit” for Ukraine.

The theme of the meeting in Davos is “rebuilding trust,” and it comes as that sentiment has been fraying globally: Wars in the Middle East and Europe have increasingly split the world into different camps.

While the geopolitical situation has oozed gloom, businesses appear more hopeful — in part from prospects that artificial intelligence can help boost productivity.

AI is a major topic at Davos, with a key talk by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella — whose company has invested billions in ChatGPT maker OpenAI — among the sessions Tuesday.

Nadella, speaking at a Bloomberg News event ahead of his talk, indicated that issues surrounding OpenAI’s leadership have been resolved. The ChatGPT maker’s governance and relationship with Microsoft came into question last year after the startup’s board suddenly fired CEO Sam Altman, who was then swiftly reinstated.

“I’m comfortable, I have no issues with any structure” of the operating model at OpenAI, Nadella said. “What I would like is good governance and real stability.”

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on his Telegram channel that four civilians were killed and 92 injured in the capital, Kyiv, and in northeastern Kharkiv as hypersonic Kinzhal missiles that can fly at 10 times the speed of sound slammed into city blocks.

Russia fired almost 100 missiles of various types, Zelenskyy said on X, formerly Twitter. He claimed that at least 70 missiles were shot down, almost all of them in the Kyiv area, and said Western-supplied air defense systems such as Patriots and NASAMS had saved hundreds of lives.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had launched missile and drone strikes on military industrial facilities in and around Kyiv. Depots storing missiles and munitions supplied by Ukraine’s Western allies were also targeted, it said.

“The goal of the strike has been achieved, all the targets have been hit,” it said without elaborating. It was not possible to independently verify either side’s claims.

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Since Sunday, Zelenskyy said, Russian forces have launched about 170 Shahed drones and “dozens of missiles of various types” in an onslaught against Ukrainian targets. Most were aimed at civilian areas, he said.

The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal is an air-launched hypersonic ballistic missile. Russian forces rarely use such expensive missiles against Ukraine due to their limited stocks.

The attacks created a desolate morning scene in the capital, with most cafes and restaurants remaining closed. Many people opted to stay indoors or seek refuge in shelters as powerful explosions shook the city from early morning.

Air raid sirens blared for nearly four hours, and the city’s subway stations — which function as shelters — were crowded.

After the Ukrainian air force issued warnings about incoming hypersonic missiles, people wearing pajamas underneath their coats took sleeping bags, mats and their pets to subway stations while loud explosions echoed above the city. At one of the central stations, called Golden Gates, hundreds of people filled the spacious underground areas while trains continued to run.

“Perhaps today was the most frightening because there were so many explosions,” said resident Myroslava Shcherba.

The barrage extended Russia’s escalated attacks on Ukraine that began Friday with its largest single assault on Ukraine since the war started, in which at least 41 civilians were killed.

The next day, shelling of the Russian border city of Belgorod killed more than two dozen people. Russia blamed Ukraine for the attack and has struck back repeatedly since.

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The attack on Belgorod was one of the deadliest to take place on Russian soil since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started more than 22 months ago. Russian officials said the death toll stood at 25 as of Monday, including five children.

Cities across western Russia have regularly come under drone attacks since May, although Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for strikes on Russian territory or the annexed Crimean Peninsula.

“They want to intimidate us and create uncertainty within our country. We will intensify strikes. Not a single crime against our civilian population will go unpunished,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday, describing the barrage of Belgorod as a “terrorist act.”

Russia launched about 90 Shahed-type drones across Ukraine on Monday.

Putin accused Western nations of using Ukraine to try to “put Russia in its place.” While vowing retribution, he insisted Russia would only target military infrastructure in Ukraine. However, Ukraine reports civilian casualties from daily Russian attacks, which have hit apartment buildings, shopping centers and residential areas in small communities.

In other developments, Russia’s Defense Ministry said one of its warplanes accidentally released munitions over the Russian village of Petropavlovka in the southwestern Voronezh region Tuesday, causing no injuries but damaging six houses. The ministry said a commission has been created to determine the cause of the accident and assess the damage. It didn’t say what type of munition the warplane dropped.

In April, munitions accidentally released by a Russian warplane caused a powerful blast in the border city of Belgorod, damaging several cars and slightly injuring two people.

Air raid sirens sounded Tuesday in Belgorod, which is near the border with Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defense systems shot down four missiles fired by a Ukrainian Vilkha multiple rocket launcher.

At least 144 people were wounded and an unknown number were buried under rubble during the roughly 18-hour onslaught, Ukrainian officials said. A maternity hospital, apartment blocks and schools were among the buildings reported damaged across Ukraine.

In the capital, Kyiv, broken glass and mangled metal littered city streets. Air raid and emergency service sirens wailed as plumes of smoke drifted into a bright blue sky.

Kateryna Ivanivna, a 72-year-old Kyiv resident, said she threw herself to the ground when a missile struck.

“There was an explosion, then flames,” she said. “I covered my head and got down in the street. Then I ran into the subway station.”

Meanwhile, in Poland, authorities said that what apparently was a Russian missile had entered the country’s airspace Friday morning from the direction of Ukraine and then vanished off radars.

In the attack on Ukraine, the air force intercepted most of the ballistic and cruise missiles and the Shahed-type drones overnight, said Ukraine’s military chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Western officials and analysts had recently warned that Russia limited its cruise missile strikes for months in an apparent effort to build up stockpiles for massive strikes during the winter, hoping to break the Ukrainians’ spirit.

The result was “the most massive aerial attack” since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on his official Telegram channel. It topped the previous biggest assault, in November 2022 when Russia launched 96 missiles, and this year’s biggest, with 81 missiles on March 9, according to air force records.

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Fighting along the front line is largely bogged down by winter weather after Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive failed to make a significant breakthrough along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) line of contact.

Ukrainian officials have urged the country’s Western allies to provide it with more air defenses. Their appeals have come as signs of war fatigue strain efforts to keep support in place.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that the bombardment shows Russian President Vladimir Putin must be stopped, “but unless Congress takes urgent action in the new year, we will not be able to continue sending the weapons and vital air defense systems Ukraine needs to protect its people. Congress must step up and act.”

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the attack should stir the world to further action in support of Ukraine.

“These widespread attacks on Ukraine’s cities show Putin will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy,” Sunak said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “We must continue to stand with Ukraine — for as long as it takes.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Russia’s attack “in the strongest terms” and said attacks against civilians are unacceptable and must end immediately, according to a statement.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the scale of the attack should wake people up to Ukraine’s continuing needs.

“Today, millions of Ukrainians awoke to the loud sound of explosions,” he wrote on X. “I wish those sounds of explosions in Ukraine could be heard all around the world. In all major capitals, headquarters, and parliaments, which are currently debating further support for Ukraine.”

In Kyiv, the bombardment damaged a subway station that lies across the street from a factory belonging to the Artem company, which produces components for various military-grade missiles. Officials did not say whether the factory was directly hit.

Overall, the attack hit six cities, and reports of deaths and damage came in from across the country. Several dozen missiles were launched towards Kyiv, with more than 30 intercepted, said Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv military administration. Eight people were killed there, officials said.

In Boyarka, near Kyiv, the debris of a shot-down drone fell on a home and started a fire. Andrii Korobka, 47, said his mother was sleeping next to the room where the wreckage landed and was taken to hospital suffering from shock.

“The war goes on, and it can happen to any house, even if you think yours will never be affected,” Korobka said.

Tetiana Sakhnenko lives next door and said neighbors ran with buckets of water to put out the blaze, but it spread quickly. “It’s so scary,” she said.

In the eastern city of Dnipro, four maternity hospital patients were rescued from a fire, five people were killed and 20 injured, officials said.

In Odesa, on the southern coast, falling drone wreckage started a fire at a multistory residential building, according to the regional head, Oleh Kiper. Two people were killed and 15, including two children, were injured, he said.

The mayor of the western city of Lviv, Andrii Sadovyi, said one person was killed there, with three schools and a kindergarten damaged in a drone attack. Local emergency services said 30 people were injured.

In northeastern Ukraine, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the city was subjected to at least three waves of aerial attacks that included S-300 and Kh-21 missile launches. One person was killed and at least nine injured, officials said.

Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court convicted Artyom Kamardin on charges of making calls undermining national security and inciting hatred, which related to him reading his anti-war poems during a street performance in downtown Moscow in September 2022.

Yegor Shtovba, who participated in the event and recited Kamardin’s verses, was sentenced to 5 1/2 years on the same charges.

The gathering next to the monument to poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was held days after President Vladimir Putin ordered a mobilization of 300,000 reservists amid Moscow’s military setbacks in Ukraine. The widely unpopular move prompted hundreds of thousands to flee Russia to avoid being recruited into the military.

Police swiftly dispersed the performance and soon arrested Kamardin and several other participants.

Russian media quoted Kamardin’s friends and his lawyer as saying that police beat and raped him during the arrest. Soon after, he was shown apologizing for his action in a police video released by pro-Kremlin media, his face bruised.

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Authorities have taken no action to investigate the alleged abuse by police.

During Thursday’s hearing, Kamardin’s wife, Alexandra Popova, was escorted out of the courtroom by bailiffs after she shouted “Shame!” following the verdict. Popova, who spoke to journalists after the hearing, and several other people were later detained on charges of holding an unsanctioned “rally” outside the court building.

Between late February 2022 and earlier this month, 19,847 people have been detained in Russia for speaking out or protesting against the war while 794 people have been implicated in criminal cases over their anti-war stance, according to the OVD-Info rights group, which tracks political arrests and provides legal assistance.

The crackdown has been carried out under a law Moscow adopted days after sending troops to Ukraine that effectively criminalized any public expression about the war deviating from the official narrative.

The latest tranche of assistance came as the Ukrainian president visited the White House and Capitol Hill to make the case for additional U.S. support as an aid package with billions in funds for the war-torn country stalls amid partisan disagreements over immigration policies.

“We’ll continue to supply Ukraine with critical weapons and equipment as long as we can, including $200 million I just approved today in critical needed equipment, additional air defense interceptors, artillery and ammunition,” Biden said during a news conference with Zelenskyy. “But without supplemental funding, we’re rapidly coming to an end of our ability to help Ukraine respond to the urgent operational demands that it has.”

Zelenskyy, in an exclusive interview with NBC News after the news conference, said that his meetings with lawmakers were helpful in that he got a chance to offer a detailed explanation of progress in his country’s war against Russia.

For more on this story go to NBCNews.com.

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But prospects for additional U.S. aid to Ukraine appeared seriously delayed, if not in grave doubt, despite his whirlwind diplomacy in Washington

After hours of talks on Capitol Hill, Zelenskyy spent more hours at the White House meeting with President Joe Biden and his aides about a way forward. The U.S. has already provided Ukraine $111 billion since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his grinding invasion more than 21 months ago, but Republicans are insisting on linking any more money to strict U.S.-Mexico border security changes that Democrats decry.

The White House is warning that if new money isn’t provided by year’s end it will have swift consequences for Ukraine’s capacity to hold its territory, let alone take back land captured by Russia.

Biden also announced Tuesday that he had approved an additional $200 million military aid package for Ukraine. Including that latest package, the U.S. now has about $4.4 billion remaining in weapons it can provide from department stockpiles.

As Zelenskyy wrapped up his two-day visit to Washington, it was unclear if he had been able to shake up the political stalemate over aid – though negotiations swiftly resumed at the Capitol and key Senate negotiators emerged saying they had made progress. He sought to make the case that supporting his country’s fight for its territorial integrity is about far more than Ukraine.

“For nearly two years we’ve been in a full scale war — the biggest since World War II, fighting for freedom,” Zelenskyy said. “No matter what Putin tries he hasn’t won any victories. Thanks to Ukraine’s success — success in defense — other European nations are safe from the Russian aggression.”

Biden similarly warned that failure by the United States to provide Ukraine further aid would embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and others on the world stage.

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“Putin is banking on the United States failing to deliver on Ukraine,” Biden said. “We must, we must, we must prove him wrong.”

Earlier, meeting with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, Biden called on Congress “to do the right thing, to stand with Ukraine, and to stand up for freedom.” He added, “Congress needs to pass the supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess. before they give Putin the greatest Christmas gift they could possibly give him.”

Zelenskyy made his own case in his private meetings with congressional leaders — that Ukrainian forces have fought fiercely to push back the Russian invasion with the help of American and other Western allies and it’s no time for Ukraine’s friends to step back.

“The fight we’re in is a fight for freedom,” Zelenskyy repeatedly said in the meetings on Capitol Hill, according to lawmakers.

Elsewhere meanwhile, more than 130 senior lawmakers from across Europe signed a letter urging U.S. lawmakers to continue their support for Ukraine.

In Washington, flanked by Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Zelenskyy entered a private meeting with senators with a public bipartisan show of support and to some applause. But more than an hour later few senators’ minds appeared changed.

Zelenskyy also visited House leaders, including privately with new Speaker Mike Johnson, whose hard-right Republicans have been the most resistant to any deal. Johnson insisted afterward: “We do want to do the right thing here.”

Zelenskyy sought to impress on the senators that Ukraine could win the war against Russia, telling them he was drafting men in their 30s and 40s in a show of strength for the battle. In his trademark olive drab, he stood before a portrait of George Washington, history hanging behind him.

To the House Democrats, he showcased his country’s embrace of the West by pointing to the Christmas season, telling them it was the first year Ukraine would celebrate on Dec. 25 rather than the day Russians mark the holiday.

McConnell said Zelenskyy was “inspirational and determined” in the Senate meeting.

But Republican senators seemed unmoved from their position. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said the emergency funding wouldn’t gain GOP support unless it includes “real, meaningful border reform.”

Biden pushed back that “history will judge harshly those who turned their backs on freedom’s cause.” The president quoted a Kremlin-aligned television host celebrating Republicans’ recent blocking of aid as a job “well done.”

“If you’re being celebrated by Russian propagandists, it might be time to rethink what you’re doing,” he said.

Biden has been calling for a $110 billion U.S. aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs.

He has expressed a willingness to engage with the Republicans as migrant crossings have hit record highs along the U.S.-Mexico border, but Democrats in his own party oppose proposals for expedited deportations and strict asylum standards as a return to Trump-era hostility toward migrants.

Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met for nearly two hours at the Capitol to help with talks. Key Senate negotiators Republican Sen James Lankford of Oklahoma and Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of New York both left saying they made progress.

Ahead of Zelenskyy’s high-stakes meetings, the White House pointed to newly declassified intelligence that shows Ukraine has inflicted heavy losses on Russia in recent fighting along the Avdiivka-Novopavlivka axis — including 13,000 casualties and over 220 combat vehicle losses. The Ukrainian holdout in the country’s partly-occupied east has been the center of some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks.

U.S. intelligence officials have determined that the Russians think if they can achieve a military deadlock through the winter it will drain Western support for Ukraine and ultimately give Russia the advantage, despite the fact that Russians have sustained heavy losses and have been slowed by persistent shortages of trained personnel, munitions and equipment.

It’s Zelenskyy’s third visit to Washington since the war broke out in February 2022, including a quick trip just a few months ago as aid was being considered. But his surprise arrival days before Christmas last December drew thunderous applause in Congress, his daring first wartime trip out of Ukraine.

At the time, lawmakers sported the blue-and-yellow colors of Ukraine, and Zelenskyy delivered a speech that drew on the parallels to World War II as he thanked Americans for their support.

But 2023 brought a new power center of hard-right Republicans, many aligned with Donald Trump, the former president who is now the GOP front-runner in the 2024 race for the White House.

Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Zelenskyy might be able to take on the stalemate by showing the stakes of potential Russian expansion toward NATO, and making his case on “moral clarity and why is Ukraine important.”

Zelenskyy kicked off the quick visit to Washington on Monday, warning in a speech at a defense university that Russia may be fighting in Ukraine but its “real target is freedom” in America and around the world. During his meeting with Biden, he also sought to assure Congress—and the American public—that Ukraine was worth the substantial cost to the United States.

“Ukraine can win,” said Zelenskyy. “People need to be confident that freedom is secure.”

Of the new $110 billion national security package, $61.4 billion would go toward Ukraine — with about half to the U.S. Defense Department to replenish weaponry it is supplying, and the other half for humanitarian assistance and to help the Ukrainian government function with emergency responders, public works and other operations.

The package includes another nearly $14 billion for Israel as it fights Hamas and $14 billion for U.S. border security. Additional funds would go for national security needs in the Asia-Pacific region.

It was the Ukrainian leader’s first official trip to Latin America as Kyiv continues to court support among developing nations for its 21-month-old fight against Russia’s invading forces.

During Zelenskyy’s visit to Buenos Aires, his office and the White House announced he would travel to Washington to meet with President Joe Biden on Tuesday.

Biden has asked Congress for a $110 billion ($61.4 billion) package of wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel, along with other national security priorities. But the request is caught up in a debate over U.S. immigration policy and border security.

The visit to Washington would focus on “ensuring the unity of the U.S., Europe and the world” in supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia, Zelenskyy’s office said.

In Argentina, Milei welcomed Zelenskyy at the presidential palace after his inauguration. The two shared an extended hug, exchanged words and then Milei, who has said he intends to convert to Judaism, presented his Ukrainian counterpart with a menorah as a gift. They were expected to have a longer one-on-one meeting later on Sunday.

A political outsider who has railed against what he calls entrenched official corruption in Argentina and promised to uproot the political establishment, Milei ran on a pro-Western foreign policy platform, repeatedly expressing distrust of Moscow and Beijing.

Zelenskyy phoned Milei shortly after the Argentine’s electoral victory last month, thanking him for his “clear support for Ukraine.” In its readout of the call, Milei’s office said he had offered to host a summit between Ukraine and Latin American states, a potential boon to Kyiv’s monthslong effort to strengthen its relationships with countries of the global south.

Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials have repeatedly presented Ukraine’s war against Russia as resistance against colonial aggression, hoping to win support from Asian, African and Latin American states that in the past struggled to free themselves from foreign domination, sometimes turning to Moscow for support against Western powers.

Zelenskyy used the trip to Argentina to meet leaders of several developing countries. He met the prime minister of the West African country of Cape Verde, Ulisses Correia e Silva, on his way to Buenos Aires. Once in Argentina, Zelenskyy met separately with the presidents of Paraguay, Ecuador and Uruguay, his office said.

“The support and strong united voice of Latin American countries that stand with the people of Ukraine in the war for our freedom and democracy is very important for us,” Zelenskyy said in a statement.

He also had a phone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, discussing “the details of the next defense package from the French Republic, which will significantly enhance Ukraine’s firepower, and the current needs of our country in armaments,” Zelenskyy’s office said.

In other developments:

— Russian shelling over the past 24 hours killed two elderly women and wounded two more civilians in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov reported on Sunday morning. In a Telegram update, Syniehubov said that both women died in the same attack in the province’s east, parts of which run close to the front line and have seen intense fighting in recent weeks.

In the Kherson region in the south, Russian shelling on Saturday and overnight killed one civilian and wounded four others, local Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram on Sunday.

___

Associated Press writer Débora Rey, in Buenos Aires contributed.

It is the first prosecution against members of the Russian armed forces in connection with atrocities during Moscow’s war against Ukraine and it is the first time the Justice Department has brought charges under a nearly 30-year-old statute that makes it a crime to subject an American to torture or inhumane treatment during a war.

The charges are largely symbolic for now, given the unlikely prospects of the department bringing any of the four defendants, who are fugitives, into custody. But U.S. officials described the case as a history-making moment in their investigation into Russian war crimes. More charges could be coming.

“This is our first, and you should expect more,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference.

He said the American people and their government have a long memory. “We will not forget the atrocities in Ukraine. And we will never stop working to bring those responsible to justice,” the nation’s top law enforcement official said.

The four Russians are identified as members of the Russian armed forces or its proxy units. Two are described as commanding officers.

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The Russians are accused of kidnapping an American man from his home in a Ukrainian village in 2022. The American was beaten and interrogated while being held for 10 days at a Russian military compound, before eventually being evacuated with his wife, who’s Ukrainian, U.S. authorities said.

The American told federal agents who had traveled to Ukraine last year as part of an investigation that the Russian soldiers had abducted him, stripped him naked, pointed a gun at his head and badly beaten him, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.

He was also subjected to harsh interrogation methods, threatened with sexual assault and forced to participate in his own mock execution, according to a five-count indictment unsealed Wednesday in the Eastern District of Virginia.

“The evidence gathered by our agents speaks to the brutality, criminality, and depravity of Russia’s invasion,” Mayorkas said.

Homeland Security and FBI investigators interviewed the American, his family and others who were around the village of Mylove around the time of the kidnapping to identify the four Russians, Mayorkas said.

“Cases like this one are among the most complex the FBI works, but bringing them is essential to deterring crimes like these and showing would-be perpetrators that no one is above the law and the war crimes will not go unpunished,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said.

Garland has been outspoken on war crimes in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, and his department assigned federal prosecutors to examine the potential of bringing criminal charges.

Independent human rights experts backed by the United Nations have said they have found continued evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces, including torture that ended in the rape and death of women up to age 83.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia does not recognize the ICC and considers its decisions “legally void.” He called the court’s move “outrageous and unacceptable.”

The United States is not a member of the ICC, but the Justice Department has been cooperating with it and supporting Ukrainian prosecutors as they carry out their own war crime investigations.

The four defendants are identified as Suren Seiranovich Mkrtchyan and Dmitry Budnik, both of whom are described by prosecutors as commanding officers in Russia’s armed forces, as well as two lower-ranking officers identified only by their first names.

All four were fighting on behalf of Russia in its war against Ukraine and are identified in the indictment as either members of the armed forces or military units from the Donestk People’s Republic. After invading Ukraine, Moscow in September 2022 illegally annexed parts of the Donetsk region and three other Ukrainian regions under its control as part of Russia.

The U.S. and Russia do not have an extradition treaty, but the Justice Department has brought repeated criminal cases against Russian nationals, most notably for cyber crimes and including for interference in the 2016 presidential election. In some of those cases, the defendants have been taken into custody by American officials, such as when they’ve traveled outside Russia.

The charges come as the Biden administration is pressing Congress to approve more military aid for Ukraine’s war effort. President Joe Biden said it was “stunning” that lawmakers have yet to approve tens of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance for Ukraine. Failure to act, he said from the White House, would be a “gift” to Putin.

The president has requested nearly $106 billion to fund the wars in Ukraine and Israel and to meet other security needs. Some Republicans have grown tired of providing support to Ukraine after the U.S. has already sent $111 billion, and other GOP lawmakers are insisting on stiff changes to U.S. border policy as a condition of voting for the package.

The U.S. is expected to announce a $175 million package of military aid to Ukraine on Wednesday. The Pentagon has said there is about $1.1 billion left in funding to replenish U.S. military stockpiles for weapons and equipment sent to Ukraine and roughly $4.8 billion in drawdown authority still available.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Zelenskyy’s appearance after the administration Monday sent an urgent warning about the need to approve the military and economic assistance to Ukraine, saying Kyiv’s war effort to defend itself from Russia’s invasion may grind to a halt without it.

Schumer said the administration had invited Zelenskyy to address the senators. They will also be hearing from the secretaries of Defense, State and other top national security officials.

In a letter to House and Senate leaders and released publicly, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young warned the U.S. will run out of funding to send weapons and assistance to Ukraine by the end of the year, saying that would “kneecap” Ukraine on the battlefield.

She added that the U.S. already has run out of money that it has used to prop up Ukraine’s economy, and “if Ukraine’s economy collapses, they will not be able to keep fighting, full stop.”

“We are out of money — and nearly out of time,” she wrote.

President Joe Biden has sought a nearly $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other needs, but it has faced a difficult reception on Capitol Hill. There is growing GOP skepticism about the magnitude of assistance for Ukraine and even Republicans supportive of the funding are insisting on U.S.-Mexico border policy changes to halt the flow of migrants as a condition for the assistance.

“Congress has to decide whether to continue to support the fight for freedom in Ukraine as part of the 50-nation coalition that President Biden has built, or whether Congress will ignore the lessons we’ve learned from history and let (Russian President Vladimir) Putin prevail,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday. “It is that simple. It is that stark choice, and we hope that Congress on a bipartisan basis will make the right choice.”

But negotiations over the border security package broke down over the weekend as Republicans insisted on provisions Democrats said are draconian, aides said. Talks are expected to resume this week.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that his party is “still at the table.”

Congress already has allocated $111 billion to assist Ukraine, including $67 billion in military procurement funding, $27 billion for economic and civil assistance and $10 billion for humanitarian aid. Young wrote that all of it, other than about 3% of the military funding, had been depleted by mid-November.

Meanwhile, the GOP-controlled House has passed a standalone assistance package for Israel as it fights the war with Hamas in Gaza, while the White House has maintained that all of the priorities must be met.

Growing increasingly uneasy about the death toll in the Israel-Hamas war, Biden’s own allies in Congress are pushing the administration to have Israel commit to reducing civilian casualties and allowing aid to Gaza before sending more military aid.

On Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders said it would be “irresponsible” for the U.S. to send billions in military aid to Israel war without such conditions.

“What the Netanyahu government is doing is immoral, it is in violation of international law, and the United States should not be complicit in those actions,” Sanders of Vermont said in a floor speech.

“Don’t count me in to support that,” Sanders said.

The new package proposes an additional $61 billion for Ukraine, mainly to buy weapons from the U.S., $14.3 billion for Israel, which includes $10.6 billion for weaponry, nearly $14 billion for border security, along with aid for the Asia-Pacific region and other U.S. national security provisions.

The Biden administration has said it has slowed the pace of some military assistance to Kyiv in recent weeks to try to stretch supplies until Congress approves more funding.

“We are out of money to support Ukraine in this fight,” Young wrote. “This isn’t a next-year problem. The time to help a democratic Ukraine fight against Russian aggression is right now. It is time for Congress to act.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson reiterated in a statement Monday that House Republicans will insist on border policy changes as part of a Ukraine assistance bill, and he argued Biden has “failed to substantively address any of my conference’s legitimate concerns about the lack of a clear strategy in Ukraine, a path to resolving the conflict, or a plan for adequately ensuring accountability for aid provided by American taxpayers.”

The letter followed a classified Capitol Hill briefing on Nov. 29 for the top House and Senate leaders on the need for the assistance. Defense and other national security officials briefed the “big four” congressional leaders.

“They were clear that Ukraine needs the aid soon — and so does our military need the aid soon,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told The Associated Press in an interview at the time.

Schumer said Monday that both Republicans and Democrats in his chamber agree on funding for Ukraine, as well as Israel, but that the funding has been halted for weeks by GOP demands that border security policy be included in a final package.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Republicans have pressed for “indefinite detention” of asylum seekers and granting the executive branch power to “shut down” the asylum system, measures that Democrats say go too far.

He is expected to push forward Biden’s supplemental funding package this week, but Republicans are threatening to block its passage with a filibuster as they insist on border security provisions.

As the war grinds into its second winter, a growing number of Russian soldiers want out, as suggested in secret recordings obtained by The Associated Press of Russian soldiers calling home from the battlefields of the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Ukraine.

The calls offer a rare glimpse of the war as it looked through Russian eyes — a point of view that seldom makes its way into Western media, largely because Russia has made it a crime to speak honestly about the conflict in Ukraine. They also show clearly how the war has progressed, from the professional soldiers who initially powered Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion to men from all walks of life compelled to serve in grueling conditions.

“There’s no f—— ‘dying the death of the brave’ here,” one soldier told his brother from the front in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. “You just die like a f—— earthworm.”

The prospect of another wave of mobilization lingers, even as Moscow has been trying to lure people into signing contracts with the military. Russia’s annual autumn conscription draft kicked off in October, pulling in some 130,000 fresh young men. Though Moscow says conscripts won’t be sent to Ukraine, after a year of service they automatically become reservists — prime candidates for mobilization.

The AP verified the identities of people in the calls by speaking with relatives and soldiers — some of whom are still at war in Ukraine — and researching open-source material linked to the phone numbers used by the soldiers.

The conversations, picked up in January 2023 — some from near the longest and deadliest fight in Bakhmut — have been edited for length and clarity. Names have been omitted to protect the soldiers and their relatives.

The voices in these calls are of men who didn’t or couldn’t flee mobilization. Some had no money, no education and no options. Others believed in patriotic duty. One worked in a meat processing plant, cutting bone. Another worked at a law firm. A third, who worked as a roofer and later at a supermarket company, had a string of debts and had defaulted on his utilities payments, records show.

It is hard to say how representative these calls are of sentiment in Russia’s armed forces, but their desperation is matched by a spike in legal cases against soldiers in Russia who refuse to fight.

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What’s happening in Ukraine is “simply genocide,” the soldier in Kharkiv told his brother. “If this s— doesn’t stop, then soon we’ll be leading the Ukrainians to the Kremlin ourselves,” he said.

“This is just a huge testing ground, where the whole world is testing their weapons, f— it, and sizing up their d—-,” he went on. “That’s all.”

But there are other voices, too, of men who remain committed to the fight.

“As long as we are needed here, we will carry out our task,” a soldier named Artyom told AP from eastern Ukraine at the end of May, where he’d been stationed for eight months without break. “Just stop asking me these stupid questions.”

The Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.

When he finally got to go home, it came at a terrible price: his brother’s life.

Nicknamed “Crazy Professor” because of his disheveled hair, he was swept up in the first days of Russia’s September 2022 draft. The soldier said he was assured that he wouldn’t see combat and would get to go home every six months.

Neither turned out to be true.

After a few weeks of training, the Professor was sent to the front line near Bakhmut as a mortarman. He wanted out almost immediately. He was ill-equipped, at least compared to the well-camouflaged Wagner soldiers wandering around.

“They have night vision and automatic rifles with cool silencers. I have an automatic rifle from 1986 or hell knows what year,” he told his brother in a January phone call.

It was his job to aim, but the Russian army’s coordinates were so sloppy that soldiers ended up killing each other.

The Professor said his commander instructed them not to kill civilians, but who was a civilian and who was a combatant? Even a kid could carry a grenade, he told his brother. Where did the mortars he fired land? Had he killed children?

The worst was when he was out with young guys in his unit. There was just a strip of woods between them and the Ukrainians.

“I imagined that there, on the other side, there could be young people just like us. And they have their whole lives ahead of them,” he told AP in June. “Bones, tears — all the same, they are the same as we are.”

The Professor told himself he didn’t really have a choice: Either fire the mortar or face criminal charges and end up in a pit or a prison.

“If you don’t like something, if you refuse to do something, you’re considered a refusenik,” he told AP. “That is, you’re a ‘500’ right away. … So we had to follow orders. Whether we wanted to or not.”

The Professor never thought he’d be a refusenik one day too.

___

The Professor: The worst thing is that there might even be children there, you know.

Brother: And what can you do. … You have your orders. … It seems to me that if it had been voluntary, you wouldn’t have gone.

The Professor: You know, I’m glad about that. Plus, we did such a good job that they gave us a car. The downside is, you know, how many lives were ruined for the sake of a car?

Brother: Not of your own free will.

The Professor: I’m already so tired.

Brother: I believe it. Time to come home. I wish you could come home. Not so that you could home but so that all of this could be over already.

___

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In the spring, as the Professor’s brothers drove down a road outside their hometown in Russia, a car made a U-turn into the side of their vehicle, sending it spinning as a semi bore down on them.

One brother was killed. Another survived but now cannot walk, family members told AP.

Desperate to go home to bury his brother, the Professor said he got approval from his commander for a 10-day leave. Military police in Russian-controlled territory in Luhansk let him through, he said, and he paid for his own taxi ride home. Once he got back to Russia, however, he was told he didn’t have the right paperwork.

Not long after the funeral, the Professor got a message from his commanding officer: “What is happening there? Are you going to come back or stay there?”

“I’ll collect the documents, and then we’ll decide everything,” he wrote back.

Two hours later, around midnight, his commander responded: “I’m reporting you as AWOL, unauthorized abandonment of the unit. It was nice fighting together.”

Now he faces up to 10 years in prison.

He hired a lawyer. Months into a 10-day leave, he can’t even apply for an extension to legalize his stay and help his family because he doesn’t have the right documents. He said his brother can move around on his arms and mostly get into his wheelchair by himself, but can’t function independently.

People from the military came to his home, he said. Terrified they’d arrest him if he went outside, he passed documents attesting to the dire state of his family’s health to them through the window.

His lawyer told him to look on the bright side. “You are the only, well, how do I put this … at least, you’re the only healthy person here.”

His mother is at the end of her endurance.

“I write everywhere, I call everywhere, too. Because he was told that he has to return to his unit,” his mother told AP. “But how can he leave his brother? I have no one.”

Now, the Professor has visions of dead people. They stare back at him. He can almost hear them walking nearby. Sometimes he bolts awake at night, sweating, or dives under the covers at the sound of a whistle.

He wants his old life back, that sweet time he had with his wife and baby. He has picked up some roofing work at construction sites, and his neighbor proposed a new side job: digging graves.

Artyom left behind a string of debts in Russia. Things got even worse in Ukraine, where it was so cold he couldn’t wash his underwear and his lighter kept freezing.

“It’s not like I’m having any f—— fun here, day in day out. It’s been f—— four months already,” he told his wife in January. “Everybody’s f—— mad, f—— gloomy as hell.”

It was New Year’s Day, and the Russians were getting bombarded by Ukrainians and not even firing back, he said.

“Yesterday we were f—— bombarded, for f—’s sake, we didn’t even get a single shell out, not a single f—— shell,” he told his wife.

The war seemed senseless to him. Why wasn’t Putin satisfied with Crimea? What business did they have trying to take Kharkiv and Kyiv? Why was everyone lying about how great things were at the front?

No one was saying the one thing he wanted to hear: that he could go home.

___

Artyom: Yesterday we were listening to the radio and someone f—— said, “the situation with mobilized soldiers is f—— wonderful.” I don’t know who the f—— idiot is who said that. “Only five thousand people died.”

Wife: Mhm. Of course.

Artyom: F—— s—heads. I think half of them are probably gone at this point.

Wife: Right.

Artyom: Five thousand people my ass.

___

Artyom doesn’t have much sympathy for draft dodgers and deserters, though he can see the wisdom in making a run for it.

“That’s what you have to do, given the chance,” he told his wife. “This is not the best f—— place to be … But then they’re gonna say you’re a f—— freak who ran away. I don’t f—— need that.”

He told her he’ll stay put and follow orders. “If God wills it so that you’re gonna f—— die, you’re gonna f—— die, can’t do much about it.”

The AP reached Artyom by phone at the end of May. He was still in eastern Ukraine, where he’d been serving for eight months without break.

Artyom said he’d been “a little worn out mentally” when he was speaking with his wife. He said he loved his family before the war and loved them even more now. He regrets he didn’t spend more time with them.

“I have to save the guys who are with me in the trenches — and myself,” he said. “That’s what I want to do. And to put down the Ukrainians faster and go home.”

After two months on the front lines north of Bakhmut, Roman had some advice for his friend and former colleague back in Russia: Avoid this war any way you can.

“I’m telling you honestly, if there’s even a slight chance, get exempted from service. But if the summons comes for mobilization, f— it to hell. Join Wagner or the contract soldiers, or wherever you can. God forbid the mobilized. The mobilized are the lowest.”

Roman explained that professional contract soldiers are taken care of: They get to go on leave, launder their clothes and bathe. They don’t have to struggle for food and water.

Meanwhile, mobilized soldiers like him are shoved in trenches with men from all walks of life, some of whom don’t even know how to hold guns. They never get to leave, and their commanders — “weak wusses,” he says — aren’t much help. He’s had to buy night vision goggles with his own money. There’s not enough to eat and no clean drinking water. Soldiers are licking at snowflakes and scooping up rainwater to drink. He said he lost 30 kilos (over 60 pounds). The diarrhea hasn’t helped.

“It came to the point that there were puddles, it had rained, and the guys scooped up all the puddles and drank,” Roman told his friend. “Snow fell, f—— s—, and the snow didn’t even reach the ground, the guys caught it and ate it.”

When he arrived in Ukraine in November 2022, Roman was part of a unit of 100 men. By early January, about a third were gone.

Roman said he’s been lucky twice. Once he got food poisoning and stayed back while a group of scouts went out. They never came back. Another time, he was carrying water and tripped and fell just as a shell landed, killing others nearby.

Surrounded by a horseshoe of Ukrainian troops, Roman said it was like being on the tip of a toilet seat, in constant fear that their supply lines, thin as they were, would get cut off.

Roman had to scoop a man’s guts back into his body — an act that didn’t save the guy’s life. Another time, he went out to defecate in a field, and tanks started firing around him. He just kept squatting till he was done. After two months of living like this, so scared you’ll shoot at the softest sound in the dark, even the strongest minds started to fray.

“We survive because we are on edge all the time,” he said. “Even guys from our own side don’t come close, especially at night. When we are on duty, we warn everyone that we will shoot at anything that rustles.”

Roman said his cousin was killed by a shell that took out a dozen soldiers. His family managed to get his body — or at least half of his body — back to Russia, but the other 11 soldiers lay unclaimed in Ukraine.

It wasn’t just the killing that did people in, it was the sense that they’d been forgotten.

___

Roman: Our group is made up of guys who are sufficiently strong, morally, and guys like that. It was the first wave. Guys came together who are sufficiently patriotic, roughly speaking, who knew what it was to fight. After two months, they start to lose it. For many of them, their psyche was broken.

Friend: Yeah, I understand, all of the killing of course.

Roman: Yes, the killing is everywhere. A f—— lot of corpses. Some were stabbed with a knife, but that’s not the point. Psyches are not broken because of this. These are people who are professionals, it’s our national army, these professionals come to our position. ‘F—, it’s f—– up here.’ They turn around and leave. That is, they are replaced, they have rotation, they are given leave, their clothes are washed and ironed, they wash in the bathhouse, they have no problem with food, they have no problem with water. It’s not like this for us. It once came to the point that there were puddles, it had rained, and the guys scooped up all the puddles and drank.

___

The “depressing, horrible” panic that attacked him at the beginning of his tour has subsided. The calls home help.

One night, Roman got pulled into a special mission. They snuck into a Ukrainian dugout, knives drawn, hacked up a bunch of men and captured a Ukrainian officer for questioning. Death was everywhere, on both sides of the front.

“F—, I already feel more pity shooting a bird than a person,” Roman told his friend.

Contacted by the AP, both men declined to comment.

After four months in Ukraine, Andrei concluded that his life meant nothing to Moscow.

Called up for military service from a small town in Russia’s far east, he soon found himself in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province, on the southern approach to Bakhmut.

Andrei’s unit was taking heavy losses, and no one was even shooting back at the Ukrainians, he said. People were dying from friendly fire. Mobilized men like him were being forced to sign contracts.

“The mobilized are not considered humans,” he told his mother. “No one gives a damn about us. They think that for 200,000 (rubles) we should die here.”

Mutiny was in the air.

___

Andrei: Our boys are dying for nothing. It’s nonsense, I tell you. This is not a war at all. When I come back, I’ll tell you what’s going on here. It’s all bull—-. I’m telling you, our boys are dying, going 300, and no one even shoots back. It’s all nonsense. Our artillery is hammering our own dugouts, not theirs. What is that?

Mother: What for?

Andrei: They, like, miss the mark. … Here, if they don’t get you, your own will.

Mother: (Inaudible)

Andrei: I’m telling you, you just start going nuts here, like everything pisses you off. Because you can’t do s— about it. Nobody gives a s—. It’s a half year and that’s it. F— them. If they don’t relieve us, if they don’t pull us out, the whole company will just walk away. They can’t put a crowd of 100 people on trial.

Mother: They have no right to keep you longer.

Andrei: No one gives a damn here. We were told the other day that they forgot about us a little bit here. But they didn’t just forget about us — they f—– us.

___

Mobilized soldiers like him are treated worst of all, he told his mom. They’re not allowed to leave — even if they get injured — because commanders fear they’ll never come back.

___

Andrei: Well, our guys are getting killed in droves.

Mother: Judging by what I —

Andrei: I’m telling you. In droves from our side. If a contract soldier is wounded, he’s sent home. If a mobilized soldier is wounded, they treat him, patch him up a bit, and tell him to go the f— back, why the hell are you dodging? All in all, if you get sick here, you will not be sent home. They won’t give a damn, and you’ll die in this pit where you live in. You can’t get sick here at all.

Mother: Better not get sick. (Inaudible)

Andrei: This is how s— works here. As long as you are useful, they like know who you are. And when you become useless, then nobody needs you. They forget about you.

___

He said the only reason he’s still alive is luck and regrets finding himself at war. “This is my only mistake in life,” he said. “I will not fall into the same trap twice.”

“God gives you one chance,” his mother responded. “God willing, you’ll come home.”

In September, Andrei’s mother told AP her son was home, keeping himself busy with his family and collecting pine cones from the taiga.

She said she was born in Ukraine and her mother still lives there. She said it pains her that Ukraine is now filled with “traitors and fascists.”

“I hate your current rulers,” she said. “Are you blind or stupid? Or can’t you see that there are no normal people? Or do you want your children to turn into monkeys, like in America? What is this? I don’t recognize my homeland, where I was born and went to school.”

___

AP reporters Lynn Berry in Washington and Alla Konstantinova in Vilnius, Lithuania, contributed to this report. Students from the Russian translation and interpretation program at Middlebury Institute of International Studies also contributed to this report.

___

Austin, who traveled to Kyiv by train from Poland, is scheduled to meet with senior Ukrainian officials and publicly press Ukraine’s urgent military needs as it enters another tough winter of fighting.

This is Austin’s second trip to Kyiv, but he’s making it under far different circumstances. His first visit occurred in April 2022, just two months after Russia’s large-scale invasion. At the time, Ukraine was riding a wave of global rage at Moscow’s invasion, and Austin launched an international effort that now sees 50 countries meet monthly to coordinate on what weapons, training and other support could be pushed to Kyiv.

“I’m here today to deliver an important message — the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine in their fight for freedom against Russia’s aggression, both now and into the future,” Austin posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

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But the conflict in Gaza could pull attention and resources from the Ukraine fight. The U.S. has worked feverishly since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel, and the weeks of devastating bombardment on Gaza by Israel that has followed, killing more than 10,000 civilians, to keep those attacks from turning into a regional war.

The U.S. has already committed two carrier strike groups, scores of fighter jets and thousands of U.S. personnel to the Middle East, and has had to shift its force posture and conduct airstrikes against Iranian- backed militant groups who are now hitting U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria on a regular basis.

To date, Ukraine has received more $44 billion from the U.S. and more than $35 billion from other allies in weapons, ranging from millions of bullets to air defense systems, advanced European and U.S. battle tanks and, finally, pledges for F-16 fighter jets.

But Ukraine still needs more, and after almost 20 months of shipping arms to Ukraine, cracks are beginning to show. Some European countries such as Poland have scaled back support, noting their need to maintain adequate fighting ability to defend themselves.

Ukrainian officials have strongly pushed back on suggestions it’s in a stalemate with Russia after a long-awaited counteroffensive over the summer did not radically change the battle lines on the ground. In a visit to Washington last week, Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s office, provided no details but confirmed that Ukrainian forces had finally pushed through to the east bank of the Dnieper River, which has essentially served as the immovable front line between Ukrainian and Russian forces for months.

However, as winter sets in it will become more difficult for either side to make large gains due to ground conditions. That could further work against Ukraine if U.S. lawmakers perceive there’s time to wait before more funds are needed.

Fred Kagan, a senior resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said that would be a mistake.

“If we stop providing aid to Ukraine, it’s not that the stalemate continues. The aid is actually essential to preventing the Russians from beginning to maneuver again in ways that can allow them to defeat Ukraine,” Kagan said. “So the cost of cutting off aid is that Russia wins and Ukraine loses and NATO loses.”

Further complicating the support is that the Pentagon has only a dwindling amount of money left in this year’s budget to keep sending weapons to Ukraine, and Congress is months late on getting a new budget passed and has not taken up a supplemental spending package that would include Ukraine aid.

Since the war began in February 2022, the U.S. has provided more than $44.2 billion in weapons to Ukraine, but the funding is nearly gone. The Pentagon can send about $5 billion more in weapons and equipment from its own stocks. But it only has about $1 billion in funding to replace those stocks. As a result, recent announcements of weapons support have been of much smaller dollar amounts than in months past.

“You have seen smaller packages, because we need to parse these out,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said Thursday. “Because we don’t know when Congress is going to pass our supplemental package.”

Officials have been urging Congress to provide additional money, but a growing number of Senate Republicans have opposed additional Ukraine aid without securing support for other unrelated provisions, such as stricter immigration laws and additional funding for border control. A stopgap spending bill passed last week to avoid a government shutdown during the holidays did not include any money for Ukraine.

Zelenskyy doubted Trump’s claim. “Former President Trump said that [in] about 24 hours, that he can manage it and finish the war. For me, what can I say? So he’s very welcome as well. President Biden was here, and he — I think he understood some details which you can understand only being here,” Zelenskyy told NBC News’ Kristen Welker. “So, I invite President Trump.”

“If he can come here, I will need 24 minutes — yes, 24 minutes. Not more. Yes. Not more — 24 minutes to explain [to] President Trump that he can’t manage this war” in that time frame, Zelenskyy said. “He can’t bring peace because of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”

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Zelenskyy was unsure of whether Trump would have Ukraine’s back if he were to be re-elected, telling Welker: “Really, I don’t know. Really, I don’t know.”

In an interview with “Meet the Press” in September, Trump claimed that he’d resolve the war in Ukraine within 24 hours if he’s re-elected. He provided few details about how he would accomplish the task, saying: “If I tell you exactly, I lose all my bargaining chips.”

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The two countries have forged an informal alliance against the United States and other democratic nations that is now complicated by the Israel-Hamas war. China has sought to balance its ties with Israel with its economic relations with Iran and Syria, which are strongly backed by Russia.

Putin arrived in Beijing on Tuesday with an honor guard meeting his plane. His visit is also a show of support for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road initiative to build infrastructure and expand China’s overseas influence.

In an interview to Chinese state media, Putin praised the massive but loosely linked BRI projects.

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“Yes, we see that some people consider it an attempt by the People’s Republic of China to put someone under its thumb, but we see otherwise, we just see desire for cooperation,” he told state broadcaster CCTV, according to a transcript released by the Kremlin on Monday.

The Russian leader will be among the highest profile guests at a gathering marking the 10th anniversary of Xi’s announcement of the BRI policy, which has laden countries such as Zambia and Sri Lanka with heavy debt after they signed contracts with Chinese companies to build roads, airports and other public works they could not otherwise afford.

Asked by reporters Friday about his visit, Putin said it would encompass talks on Belt and Road-related projects, which he said Moscow wants to link with efforts by an economic alliance of ex-Soviet Union nations mostly located in Central Asia to “achieve common development goals.” He also downplayed the impact of China’s economic influence in a region that Russia has long considered its backyard and where it has worked to maintain political and military clout.

“We don’t have any contradictions here, on the contrary, there is a certain synergy,” Putin said.

Putin said he and Xi will also discuss growing economic and financial ties between Moscow and Beijing.

Beijing and Moscow have financial ties in energy, high-tech and financial industries. China has also grown in importance as an export destination for Moscow.

Alexander Gabuev, director of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said that from China’s view, “Russia is a safe neighbor that is friendly, that is a source of cheap raw materials, that’s a support for Chinese initiatives on the global stage and that’s also a source of military technologies, some of those that China doesn’t have.”

“For Russia, China is its lifeline, economic lifeline in its brutal repression against Ukraine,” Gabuev told The Associated Press.

“It’s the major market for Russian commodities, it’s a country that provides its currency and payment system to settle Russia’s trade with the outside world — with China itself, but also with many other countries, and is also the major source of sophisticated technological imports, including dual-use goods that go into the Russian military machine.”

Gabuev said that while Moscow and Beijing will be unlikely to forge a full-fledged military alliance, their defense cooperation will grow.

“I don’t expect that Russia and China will create a military alliance,” Gabuev said. “Both countries are self-sufficient in terms of security and they benefit from partnering, but neither really requires a security guarantee from the other. And they preach strategic autonomy.”

“There will be no military alliance, but there will be closer military cooperation, more interoperability, more cooperation on projecting force together, including in places like the Arctic and more joint effort to develop a missile defense that makes the U.S. nuclear planning and planning of the U.S. and its allies in Asia and in Europe more complicated,” he added.

China and the former Soviet Union were Cold War rivals for influence among left-leaning states, but have since partnered in the economic, military and diplomatic spheres. Just weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, Putin met with Xi in Beijing and the sides signed an agreement pledging a “no-limits” relationship. Beijing’s attempts to present itself as a neutral peace broker in Russia’s war on Ukraine have been widely dismissed by the international community.

Xi visited Moscow in March as part of a flurry of exchanges between the countries. China has condemned international sanctions imposed on Russia, but hasn’t directly addressed an arrest warrant issued for Putin by the International Criminal Court on charges of alleged involvement in the abductions of thousands of children from Ukraine.

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Associated Press writer Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

Still, many lawmakers acknowledge that winning approval for Ukraine assistance in Congress is growing more difficult as the war between Russia and Ukraine grinds on. Republican resistance to the aid has been gaining momentum in the halls of Congress.

Voting in the House this past week pointed to the potential trouble ahead. Nearly half of House Republicans voted to strip $300 million from a defense spending bill to train Ukrainian soldiers and purchase weapons. The money later was approved separately, but opponents of Ukraine support celebrated their growing numbers.

Then, on Saturday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy omitted additional Ukraine aid from a measure to keep the government running until Nov. 17. In doing so, he closed the door on a Senate package that would have funneled $6 billion to Ukraine, roughly a third of what has been requested by the White House. Both the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved the stopgap measure, with members of both parties abandoning the increased aid for Ukraine in favor of avoiding a costly government shutdown.

The latest actions in Congress signal a gradual shift in the unwavering support that the United States has so far pledged Ukraine in its fight against Russia, and it is one of the clearest examples yet of the Republican Party’s movement toward a more isolationist stance. The exclusion of Ukraine funding came little more than a week after lawmakers met in the Capitol with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who sought to assure lawmakers that his military was winning the war, but stressed that additional aid would be crucial for continuing the fight.

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After that visit, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that one sentence summed up Zelenskyy’s message in his meeting with the Senate: “‘If we don’t get the aid, we will lose the war,” Schumer said.

Yet, McCarthy, pressured by his right flank, has gone from saying “no blank checks” for Ukraine, with the focus being on accountability, to describing the Senate’s approach as putting “Ukraine in front of America.” He declined to say after the vote on government funding whether he would bring aid for Ukraine up for a House vote in the coming weeks.

“If there is a moment in time we need to have a discussion about that, we will have a discussion completely about that, but I think the administration has to make the case for what is victory,” McCarthy said.

In the Senate, both Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell pledged to move quickly to try and pass the full White House request. But it was clear that goal will be increasingly difficult as more rank-and-file GOP senators have questioned the aid or demanded that it be attached to immigration policy that would help secure the southern border — echoing similar demands in the House.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican who voted for the spending bill after the Ukraine aid was stripped out, said that Congress needs to have “a conversation with the American public.” He said he was optimistic after seeing the money taken out of the bill.

“In my state, people want to be helpful to Ukraine, but they also want to be helpful to Americans,” Scott said. “And so they want to really understand how this money has been spent.”

Democrats said they were disappointed by the lack of Ukraine funding, but expressed determination that they would get the aid to the war-torn country.

“We will not stop fighting for more economic and security assistance for Ukraine,” Schumer said after the bill passed. “Majorities in both parties support Ukraine aid, and doing more is vital for America’s security and for democracy around the world.”

Leading up to Saturday’s vote, Pentagon officials expressed alarm at the prospect of no extra funding for Ukraine. In a letter to congressional leaders dated Friday, Michael McCord, under secretary of defense, wrote that the department has exhausted nearly all the available security assistance.

“Without additional funding now, we would have to delay or curtail assistance to meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements, including for air defense and ammunition that are critical and urgent now as Russia prepares to conduct a winter offensive and continues its bombardment of Ukrainian cities,” McCord said.

Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he would like to send a clear message to the world about U.S. support for Ukraine by passing legislation, but believes the Pentagon has “enough draw-down money” to last through December. He said he believes McCarthy still supports funding for Ukraine.

“I think the speaker has always had a good position on Ukraine. I think he’s dealing with a caucus that’s got fractures that he has to deal with and none of them can be ignored when you’ve got a four-seat majority and 15 nuts in the conference,” Rogers said, referring to far-right lawmakers who have staunchly opposed funding for Ukraine.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he heard McCarthy tell Zelenskyy during his visit that “we will give them what they need.”

“Unfortunately, the message that speaker and the former president is sending is that they can’t be relied upon,” Meeks said, adding a reference to former President Donald Trump, who has called on Congress to withhold additional Ukraine funding until the FBI, IRS and Justice Department “hand over every scrap of evidence” on the Biden family’s business dealings.

The U.S. has approved four rounds of aid to Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion, totaling about $113 billion, with some of that money going toward replenishment of U.S. military equipment that was sent to the frontlines. In August, Biden called on Congress to provide for an additional $24 billion.

Saturday’s move by the House to act first on government funding left the Senate with a stark choice: either go along with a bill that fails to help Ukraine, or allow what could have been an extended government shutdown to occur.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., expressed frustration at the outcome.

“Every day that goes by that we don’t get the additional money is a day Russia gets closer to being capable of winning this war,” Murphy said.

Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Ukraine should not be deterred, and that aid can be approved by other means.

“Neither our friends nor our enemies should look at this as being some change in the United States’ commitment to Ukraine,” Risch said.

___

Associated Press writers Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

In an address released in the early hours to mark the first anniversary of the annexation, Putin insisted that it was carried out “in full accordance with international norms.” He also claimed that residents of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions had again expressed their desire to be part of Russia in local elections earlier this month, in which Russia’s Central Election Commission said that the country’s ruling party won the most votes.

The West has denounced both the referendum votes carried out last year and the recent ballots as a sham. The votes were held as Russian authorities attempted to tighten their grip on territories Moscow illegally annexed a year ago and still does not fully control.

A concert was held in Red Square on Friday to mark the anniversary, but Putin did not participate.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, air defenses shot down 30 out of 40 Iranian-made kamikaze drones aimed at the Odesa, Mykolaiv and Vinnytsia provinces overnight, the Ukrainian air force said Saturday.

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Vinnytsia regional Gov. Serhii Borzov said that air defenses shot down 20 drones over his central Ukrainian region, but that a “powerful fire” broke out in the town of Kalynivka when a drone struck an unspecified infrastructure facility.

Romania’s Ministry of National Defense said on Saturday that a possible unauthorized entry into its national airspace occurred overnight amid the bombardment.

It said the radar surveillance system of the Romanian Army detected “a possible unauthorized entry” into the national airspace of NATO member Romania, with a signal detected toward the city of Galati, which is close to the border with Ukraine.

“At this moment, no objects have been identified that fell from the airspace onto the national territory,” the statement read, adding that NATO allies were informed in real time and that searches will continue through Saturday.

Emergency authorities issued text message alerts overnight to residents living in the counties of Galati and Tulcea, after detecting what the defense ministry said was “groups of drones heading toward Ukrainian territory” near the border.

In recent weeks, Romania has found drone fragments on its soil from the war next door at least three times as Russian forces carry out sustained attacks on Ukraine’s Danube ports.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that it had shot down nine Ukrainian rockets fired at its southern Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine. Local officials in Russia’s Bryansk region, also bordering Ukraine, reported disruptions to power supply following an unspecified attack on the town of Pogar. Drone strikes and shelling in the Russian border regions are a regular occurrence.

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AP writers Stephen McGrath in Sighisoara, Romania, and Elise Morton in London contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

The increase also complicates the global fight against inflation and feeds Russia’s war chest. That poses problems for politicians as well as the people having to spend more to get to work, transport the world’s goods or harvest fields.

Here are things to know about the recent increase — and where prices might be going:

Above all, Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut back how much oil it sends to global markets has pushed prices higher.

The world’s second-largest oil supplier has slashed production by 1 million barrels a day since July and decided this month to extend the cut through the end of the year.

Russia, Saudi Arabia’s ally in the OPEC+ oil producers’ coalition, also extended its own cut of 300,000 barrels a month through 2023.

Simply, tighter supply means higher prices.

International benchmark Brent oil traded at just under $94 per barrel Monday, up from $90 before the extension on Sept. 5 and from $74 before the Saudi cut was first announced. U.S. oil traded at around $90.50, up from $68 before the Saudi cut.

Some analysts think oil could hit $100 a barrel based on robust demand and limited supply. But that’s far from the only view.

Oil prices can be volatile, and while they might briefly top $100 in the coming months, they’re unlikely to stay there, said Jorge Leon, senior vice president for oil markets at Rystad Energy. He foresees prices in the low $90s on average in the last three months of the year.

That’s still high historically, he said, supported by “resilient” demand for fuel to drive and fly.

The Saudi cuts were a unilateral move outside the framework of the OPEC+ alliance, meaning the kingdom can make changes as needed to quickly respond to shifting market conditions.

Leon said the Saudis will review the cuts each month — and could add barrels back if prices spike to levels that could seriously worsen inflation in countries buying oil. Excessive price increases could mean central banks worldwide hike interest rates further or keep them higher for longer.

“I don’t think it will be clever for the Saudis to push that hard,” Leon said. “The last thing you want to do is fuel inflation again with much higher oil prices. That’s going to kill economic growth, and lower growth is going to mean lower oil demand at the end of the day.”

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A big question is demand for fuel, which is picking up along with rebounding travel following the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic. A robust U.S. economy increases demand for oil — and the price — while weak growth in China and Europe has the opposite effect.

“We see the upside potential for the oil price as being virtually used up and if anything envisage setback potential in view of the weak economy,” said Thu Lan Nguyen, Commerzbank head of commodities research who foresees oil at $85 per barrel by year’s end. “The oil price is only likely to climb more lastingly once the economic outlook begins to brighten, which should be the case next year.”

Another factor is financial speculation, and it appears investors are piling into the oil market with bets that prices will rise.

“Much of the price surge beyond $85 per barrel is due to a flood of speculative money, while fundamentally there is still plenty of oil in the world to meet demand for now,” said Gary Peach, oil markets analyst at Energy Intelligence.

Plus, more Iranian oil may come on the market as the U.S. “turns a blind eye” on enforcing sanctions to keep prices from rising further, Leon said. That could add 200,000 to 300,000 barrels a day.

Costlier oil feeds through to higher prices for gasoline and diesel, especially in the U.S., where roughly half the pump price reflects the cost of crude — the rest is marketing, taxes and other costs.

Crude is a smaller share of gasoline and diesel prices in Europe because fuel taxes are much higher there.

Average U.S. pump prices are still well below the record $5 per gallon seen in summer 2022. But at $3.85 per gallon, they’re still up 15 cents from a year ago. Oil costs are keeping gas prices high even as driving demand drops with the end of summer vacations and plentiful gasoline stocks, according to auto club AAA.

Diesel prices have risen as well, along with higher oil costs and refineries facing shortages of the specific kinds of crude best for making diesel. Refineries also are choosing to produce jet fuel instead, chasing profits as air travel rebounds. A gallon of diesel cost $4.58 last week, up from $4.34 a month ago.

That hurts farmers, who use a lot of diesel, and adds to the price of consumer goods transported by truck, which is pretty much everything.

Diesel supplies got even tighter Friday after Russia said it would halt the export of refined oil products to hold down fuel prices at home.

Oil is Russia’s main moneymaker, so higher prices help the Kremlin pay for its invasion of Ukraine and weather sweeping Western sanctions aimed at crushing its wartime economy.

The recent rise in oil prices, along with a cutback in the discount that sanctions forced Russia to offer Asian customers, means Moscow will earn “significantly more revenue from those exports,” said Benjamin Hilgenstock, senior economist at the Kyiv School of Economics.

The additional revenue could reach an estimated $17 billion this year and $33 billion next year, he said in an online talk hosted by the Brussels-based European Policy Center.

Russia has lost some $100 billion in oil revenue following a European Union import ban and a $60-per-barrel price cap imposed by the Group of Seven major economies, which bars Western insurers and shippers from handling oil priced above that level.

Russia, however, has increasingly found ways around the cap, including using a fleet of ghost tankers masking their ownership and origin of the crude they carry.

Any additional export earnings help support Russia’s currency and what it can import — including weapons components.

U.S. President Joe Biden has faced criticism from Republican lawmakers to encourage more oil drilling and scrap his support for electric vehicles.

But that criticism largely overlooks the rise in U.S. oil production over the past year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that oil production averaged 12.8 million barrels a day in June, up 1 million barrels from 12 months ago, close to the levels achieved before the pandemic began in 2020.

Biden has said he considers oil production essential to keep the economy going as a bridge to a future with EVs and renewable energy.

Still, the White House views the oil market worldwide as being undersupplied, in line with recent OPEC data that indicates there will likely be a worldwide shortfall of 3 million barrels a day. The administration is also in touch with domestic and international producers on longtime supply needs, trying to ensure that the risk of higher oil prices does not disrupt economic growth.

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Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed from Washington.

In a speech at the U.N. General Assembly last week, Yoon said South Korea “will not sit idly by” if North Korea and Russia agree to weapons deals that would pose a threat to the South.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un‘s trip to Russia earlier this month to meet President Vladimir Putin and visit key military sites raised international concern about a possible push by North Korea to receive sophisticated nuclear and weapons technologies in return for replenishing Russia’s conventional arms inventory depleted by its war with Ukraine.

“Puppet traitor Yoon Suk Yeol, even at the 78th U.N. General Assembly, malignantly slandered the relations between (North Korea) and Russia,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.

Without addressing the worries about a possible weapons deal with Russia, KCNA said it’s “quite natural” and a “legitimate right” for neighboring countries to keep close ties with each other.

“It’s self-evident that such a guy with a trash-like brain cannot understand the profound and enormous meaning of the development of (North Korea)-Russia friendly relations,” KCNA said. “No one in the world would lend an ear to the hysteric fit of puppet traitor Yoon Suk Yeol, who is only wearing disgraceful ill fames of ‘political immature,’ ‘diplomatic idiot’ and ‘incompetent chief executive.’”

Koo Byoungsam, a spokesperson for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said the KCNA insults demonstrated North Korea’s “substandard system that lacks basic etiquette and common sense.”

Since taking office last year, Yoon, a conservative former prosecutor, has sought to strengthen South Korea’s military alliance with the United States, drawing an angry response from North Korea. Monday’s KCNA dispatch accused Yoon of “voluntarily acting as a servile trumpeter and loudspeaker for the U.S.”

Also Monday, the South Korean and U.S. navies began three days of joint naval drills off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast to improve their joint operational capability, according to South Korea’s navy. North Korea views South Korean-U.S. military exercises as invasion rehearsals and typically reacts with its own missile tests.

The U.S. and South Korea have warned that Russia and North Korea will face undefined consequences if they enter into weapons transfer deals in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban any weapons trade with North Korea. Russia, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, endorsed those U.N. resolutions.

In his U.N. speech last Wednesday, Yoon said “It is paradoxical that a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, entrusted as the ultimate guardian of world peace, would wage war by invading another sovereign nation and receive arms and ammunition from a regime that blatantly violates Security Council resolutions.”

Yoon said that if North Korea “acquires the information and technology necessary” to enhance its weapons of mass destruction in exchange for giving conventional weapons to Russia, that would also be unacceptable.

North Korea is notorious for using crude invectives against South Korean and U.S. leaders. It called previous South Korean Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye “a rat” and “a prostitute” respectively. It described former U.S. President Donald Trump as “a mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and called Barack Obama a monkey.

Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.

“In my remarks following the address of the President of Ukraine, I recognized an individual in the gallery. I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so,” Rota said in a statement.

He added that his fellow Parliament members and the Ukraine delegation were not aware of his plan to recognize Hunka. Rota noted Hunka is from his district.

“I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world. I accept full responsibility for my action,” Rota said.

Hunka could not be immediately reached for comment.

Canadian lawmakers cheered and Zelenskyy raised his fist in acknowledgement as Hunka saluted from the gallery during two separate standing ovations. Rota called him a “Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service.”

Zelenskyy was in Ottawa to bolster support from Western allies for Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion.

Vladimir Putin has painted his enemies in Ukraine as “neo-Nazis,” even though Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office said in a statement that Rota had apologized and accepted full responsibility for issuing the invitation to Hunka and for the recognition in Parliament.

“This was the right thing to do,” the statement said. “No advance notice was provided to the Prime Minister’s Office, nor the Ukrainian delegation, about the invitation or the recognition.”

The First Ukrainian Division was also known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies issued a statement Sunday saying the division “was responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians with a level of brutality and malice that is unimaginable.”

“An apology is owed to every Holocaust survivor and veteran of the Second World War who fought the Nazis, and an explanation must be provided as to how this individual entered the hallowed halls of Canadian Parliament and received recognition from the Speaker of the House and a standing ovation,” the statement said.

B’nai Brith Canada’s CEO, Michael Mostyn, said it was outrageous that Parliament honored a former member of a Nazi unit, saying Ukrainian “ultra-nationalist ideologues” who volunteered for the Galicia Division “dreamed of an ethnically homogenous Ukrainian state and endorsed the idea of ethnic cleansing.”

“We understand an apology is forthcoming. We expect a meaningful apology. Parliament owes an apology to all Canadians for this outrage, and a detailed explanation as to how this could possibly have taken place at the center of Canadian democracy,” Mostyn said before Rota issued his statement.

Members of Parliament from all parties rose to applaud Hunka. A spokesperson for the Conservative party said the party was not aware of his history at the time.

“We find the reports of this individual’s history very troubling,” said Sebastian Skamski, adding that Trudeau’s Liberal party would have to explain why he was invited.

The Ukrainian leader received a far quieter reception than the hero’s welcome he got last year, but also won generally favorable comments on the aid he says he needs to stave off defeat. His arrival was treated with more pomp at the White House, where a red carpet arrival on the South Lawn, followed by time in the Oval Office, an expanded gathering in the East Room and one-on-one time for the two first ladies, was a more grand reception than world leaders typically get.

Zelenskyy, in long-sleeve olive drab, came to the Capitol with a firm message in private talks with Republican and Democratic leaders. The Ukrainians have a solid war plan, and “they are winning,” lawmakers quoted him as assuring them, at a time that the world is watching Western support for Kyiv.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden welcomed Zelenskyy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, later at the White House, where Zelenskyy described thanking members of Congress for their “big, huge support.” Biden was firm in his backing.

“The American people are determined to see to it that we do all we can to ensure the world stands with you,” Biden assured Zelenskyy, projecting White House support of Ukraine to other nations as well. “That is our overwhelming objective.”

The serious tone was evident earlier, too, at the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin greeted Zelenskyy without the usual ceremonial band and other fanfare.

At the Capitol, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who faces opposition among far-right Republicans aligned with former President Donald Trump on support for Ukraine, notably chose not to join House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in greeting the Ukrainian president when he arrived.

McCarthy also confirmed that he declined Zelenskyy’s request for a joint session of Congress, as happened during the Ukrainian president’s dramatic visit to Washington last winter, saying there wasn’t time for that on short notice.

But McCarthy praised the answers that Ukrainians delivered to lawmakers Thursday.

“It was direct, I thought it was honest, they were answering the questions,” McCarthy said. “I heard a lot of positive things.

Republican House lawmakers described questioning Zelenskyy on the way forward for Ukraine’s counteroffensive, as the fight to roll back invading Russian forces moves closer to the two-year mark without major breakthroughs in Russia’s heavily mined lines.

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Zelensky “conceded that it’s tough, very tough to overcome entrenched defenses,” Independent Sen. Angus King said. “They believe they will make slow but steady progress, but it’s not going to be quick.”

It is Zelenskyy’s second visit to Washington since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and comes as Biden’s request to Congress for an additional $24 billion for Ukraine’s military and humanitarian needs is hanging in the balance.

Back home, Russian launched its heaviest strikes in a month in the hours before Zelenskyy’s arrival at Congress, killing three, igniting fires and damaging energy infrastructure as Russian missiles and artillery pounded cities across Ukraine.

Zelenskyy in his White House stop stressed Ukraine’s need for strengthened air defense systems to fend off Russian missiles and drones.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan underscored Thursday that Biden would seek to drive home with Zelenskyy’s visit that the U.S. and the world “send the unmistakable message that in the 21st century, a dictator cannot be allowed to conquer or carve up his neighbor’s territory.”

“If we allow that here. it will happen elsewhere in ways that will undermine the fundamental security, not to mention the values that the American people hold so dear,” Sullivan said.

Biden has called on world leaders to stand strong with Ukraine, even as he faces domestic political divisions at home. A hard-right flank of Republicans, led by Trump, Biden’s chief rival in the 2024 race for the White House, is increasingly opposed to sending more money overseas.

Zelenskyy faces challenges in Europe as well as cracks emerge in what had been a largely united Western alliance behind Ukraine.

Late Wednesday, Poland’s prime minister said his country is no longer sending arms to Ukraine, a comment that appeared aimed at pressuring Kyiv and put Poland’s status as a major source of military equipment in doubt as a trade dispute between the neighboring states escalates.

Zelenskyy’s visit comes with U.S. and world government leaders watching as Ukrainian forces struggle to take back territory that Russia gained over the past year. Their progress in the next month or so before the rains come and the ground turns to mud could be critical to rousing additional global support over the winter. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who believes he can outlast allied backing for Kyiv, will be ready to capitalize if he sees Ukraine is running low on air defense or other weapons.

The administration announced another $325 million Thursday in what’s known as presidential drawdown assistance for Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the package would include additional air defense, artillery ammunition, cluster munitions and other arms.

Since the start of the war, most members of Congress supported approving four rounds of aid to Ukraine, totaling about $113 billion, viewing defense of the country and its democracy as an imperative, especially when it comes to containing Putin. Some of that money went toward replenishing U.S. military equipment sent to the frontlines.

The political environment has shifted markedly since Zelenskyy addressed Congress last December on his first trip out of Ukraine since the war began. He was met with rapturous applause for his country’s bravery and surprisingly strong showing in the war.

His meeting with senators on Thursday took place behind closed doors in the Old Senate Chamber, a historic and intimate place of importance at the U.S. Capitol, signifying the respect the Senate is showing the foreign leader.

Zelenskyy received a warm welcome from both parties on his stop in the Senate. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer flanked him as he walked in. A few lawmakers of both parties wore clothes with blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Schumer told reporters afterward one sentence summed up the meeting: “Mr. Zelenskyy said if we don’t get the aid, we will lose the war.”

Senate Republican leader McConnell, who is trying to keep his party in line behind support for Ukraine, said afterward he was proud to welcome Zelenskyy to the Capitol.

“Americans’ support for Ukraine is not a charity,” he said. “It’s an investment in our own self-interest.”

___

Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Kevin Freking, Lolita M. Baldor and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

Seven people were injured in Kyiv, including a 9-year-old girl, reported Mayor Vitalii Klitschko, and some residential and commercial buildings were damaged.

At least six strikes hit the Slobidskyi district of Kharkiv, damaging civilian infrastructure damaged, said regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov. The city’s mayor added that two people had been sent to hospitals.

Five were injured and at least one person was buried under rubble in Cherkasy, where a social infrastructure building was damaged, said regional Governor Ihor Taburets.

Regional Governor Vitalii Koval reported strikes in the city of Rivne in the northwest region of the same name, without immediately providing details.

“When hatred is weaponized against one nation, it never stops there,” he said at the U.N. General Assembly’s annual top-level meeting. “The goal of the present war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our lives, our resources into weapons against you — against the international rules-based order.”

He pointed to the war’s effect on fuel and food supplies. And he highlighted what Ukraine says were at least tens of thousands of children taken from their families after Moscow’s invasion: “What will happen to them?”

“Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine, and all ties with their families are broken. And this is clearly a genocide,” Zelenskyy said.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in March for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another official, accusing them of abducting children from Ukraine. Russian officials have denied any forced transfers of children, saying some Ukrainian children are in foster care.

Russia gets its chance to address the General Assembly on Saturday, when Foreign Minister Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected on the rostrum. Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky sat in Russia’s seat during Zelenskyy’s speech.

Zelenskyy took to the world stage at a sensitive point in his country’s campaign to maintain international support for its fight. Nearly 19 months after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion, Ukrainian forces are three months into a counteroffensive that has not gone as fast or as well as initially hoped.

Ukraine and its allies cast the country’s cause as a battle for the rule of international law, for the sovereignty of every country with a powerful and potentially expansionist neighbor, and for the stability of global supplies that have been rocked by the war. The commodity upheaval has triggered inflation and caused serious hardships for poor countries.

“We must stand up to this naked aggression today and deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow,” U.S. President Joe Biden told the assembly Tuesday in his own speech. As he pledged support to Ukraine, there was a round of applause, and the U.N. cameras showed Zelenskyy, sitting in Ukraine’s seat in the General Assembly, clapping his hands.

Russia insists its war is justified, claiming that it is defending Russian speakers in Ukraine from a hostile government and Russian interests against NATO encroachment, and more.

The war has raged longer and losses have been greater than Russia hoped, and the fighting has spurred widespread international condemnation and sanctions against Moscow.

But the Kremlin also has influential friends that haven’t joined the chorus of censure: China and India, for instance, have staked out neutral positions. So have many Middle Eastern and African nations. Many Latin American and Caribbean countries prefer to focus world attention on other global issues, including climate change and conflict in Africa.

Moscow is keen to display its global influence and its relationship with China and insists that it cannot be internationally isolated by the U.S. and its European allies.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is concerned that backing from its allies may be ebbing. They have supplied billions of dollars’ worth of arms but fear that their stockpiles are shrinking and that defense contractors are struggling to boost production lines.

Hours before Zelenskyy spoke at the U.N., allied defense leaders convened at a U.S. military base in Germany to discuss next steps.

Some nations pledged further money and weapons. But a key sticking point is whether to supply longer-range missiles that Kyiv insists it needs in order to hit Russian troops and facilities from a safe distance — as far as about 180 miles (300 kilometers) away. The U.S. is wary of the request, worried that Ukraine could use such weapons to strike deep into Russian territory and provoke Moscow.

The U.S. Congress is currently weighing Biden’s request to provide as much as $24 billion more in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, amid a growing partisan divide over spending on the conflict. Zelenskyy is scheduled to spend time Thursday on Capitol Hill and to meet with Biden at the White House.

After landing Monday in New York, Zelenskyy suggested that the U.N. needs to answer for allowing his country’s invader a seat at the tables of power.

“For us, it’s very important that all our words, all our messages, will be heard by our partners. And if in the United Nations still — it’s a pity, but still — there is a place for Russian terrorists, the question is not to me. I think it’s a question to all the members of the United Nations,” Zelenskyy said after visiting wounded Ukrainian service members at Staten Island University Hospital.

Russia is a permanent, veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, which is entrusted with maintaining international peace and security.

Zelenskyy has taken the United Nations to task before. In one memorable example, he lamented at the General Assembly in 2021 that the U.N. was ”a retired superhero who’s long forgotten how great they once were.”

A former comedian and actor who took office in 2019, Zelenskyy later became a wartime leader, wearing military fatigues, rallying citizens at home and appearing virtually and in person before numerous international bodies.

During his time at the Staten Island hospital, he awarded medals to military members who had lost limbs. With help from a New Jersey-based charity called Kind Deeds, 18 troops have been fitted for prostheses and are undergoing outpatient physical therapy at the hospital, according to its leaders.

“We all will be waiting for you back home,” Zelenskyy told those he met. “We absolutely need every one of you.”

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Gatopoulos reported from Athens.

The talks with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu came after Kim on Friday was shown some of Russia’s most advanced weapons systems deployed for its war on Ukraine, including nuclear-capable bombers and hypersonic missiles, and a key warship of its Pacific fleet, the Korean Central News Agency said.

Kim’s trip, highlighted by a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, has underscored how their interests are aligning in the face of separate, intensifying confrontations with the West. U.S. and South Korean officials have said North Korea could provide badly needed munitions for Putin’s war on Ukraine in exchange for sophisticated Russian weapons technology that would advance Kim’s nuclear ambitions.

While his predominant focus is on military cooperation, Kim also appears to be using his trip to encourage broader exchanges between the countries as he tries to break out of diplomatic isolation.

The governor of Russia’s Primorye region, which includes Vladivostok, said he plans to meet with Kim on Sunday. Gov. Oleg Kozhemyako said on his messaging app channel they would discuss exchange programs for schoolchildren to attend summer camps in one another’s country and other ways to cooperate in sports, tourism and culture. Russian media said Kim may also visit food industry businesses in Primorye.

A day after visiting an aircraft plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur that produces Russia’s most powerful fighter jets, Kim on Saturday traveled to an airport near the port city of Vladivostok, where Shoigu and other senior military officials gave him an up-close look at Russia’s strategic bombers and other warplanes.

All the Russian warplanes shown to Kim were among the types that have seen active use in the war in Ukraine, including the Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers that have regularly launched cruise missiles.

During Kim’s visit, Shoigu and Lt. Gen. Sergei Kobylash, the commander of the Russian long-range bomber force, confirmed for the first time that the Tu-160 had recently received new cruise missiles with a range of more than 6,500 kilometers (over 4,040 miles).

Shoigu, who had met Kim during a rare visit to North Korea in July, also showed Kim another of Russia’s latest missiles, the hypersonic Kinzhal, carried by the MiG-31 fighter jet, that saw its first combat during the war in Ukraine.

Kim and Shoigu later traveled to Vladivostok, where they inspected the Admiral Shaposhnikov frigate. Russia’s navy commander, Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov, briefed Kim on the ship’s capabilities and weapons, which include long-range Kalibr cruise missiles that Russian warships have regularly fired at targets in Ukraine.

KCNA, which has reported Kim’s activities in Russia a day late while crafting the details to meet government propaganda purposes, said Kim was accompanied on Saturday’s visits by his top military officials, including his defense minister and the top commanders of his air force and navy.

Following a luncheon, Kim and Shoigu talked about the regional security environment and exchanged views on “practical issues arising in further strengthening the strategic and tactical coordination, cooperation and mutual exchange between the armed forces of the two countries,” KCNA said.

In their July meeting, Kim gave Shoigu a similar inspection of North Korean weapons systems before inviting him to a massive parade in the capital, Pyongyang, where he rolled out his most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to target the United States.

Kim’s visits to military and technology sites this week possibly hint at what he wants from Russia, perhaps in exchange for supplying munitions to refill Putin’s declining reserves as his invasion of Ukraine becomes a drawn-out war of attrition.

Kim’s meeting with Putin was held at Russia’s main spaceport, a location that pointed to his desire for Russian assistance in his efforts to acquire space-based reconnaissance assets and missile technologies.

Experts have said potential military cooperation between the countries could include efforts to modernize North Korea’s outdated air force, which relies on warplanes sent from the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Kim in recent months has also refocused on strengthening the country’s navy, which analysts say could be driven by ambitions to obtain Russia’s sophisticated technologies for ballistic missile submarines and nuclear-propelled submarines as well as to initiate joint naval exercises between Russia and North Korea.

Later Saturday, Kim visited a local theater to watch Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty ballet performance. KCNA said Kim received a rousing ovation by people at the theater and expressed “deep thanks to the performers and the theater for their impressive and elegant ballet of high artistic value.”

Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency said Kim left after the first act.

Trump readily claimed in the interview that if re-elected president, he would resolve the war within 24 hours, though he provided few details about how he would end a conflict that has dragged on for more than 18 months. The former president has asserted several times that he could quickly end the war.

“If I tell you exactly, I lose all my bargaining chips. I mean, you can’t really say exactly what you’re going to do. But I would say certain things to Putin. I would say certain things to Zelenskyy,” he said, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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Zelenskyy’s trip comes as Congress is debating President Joe Biden’s request to provide as much as $24 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine as it fights the Russian invasion.

An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive visit, said Zelenskyy will meet with Biden at the White House next Thursday. The trip to the Capitol was confirmed by two congressional aides granted anonymity to discuss the plans.

The Ukrainian president made a wartime visit to Washington in December 2022 and delivered an impassioned address to a joint meeting of Congress. At the time it was his first known trip outside his country since Russia invaded in February of that year.

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In his speech to cheering lawmakers, Zelenskyy thanked Americans for helping to fund the war effort and said that the money is “not charity,” but an “investment” in global security and democracy.

Details of Zelenskyy’s visit next week were not yet being made public. It was first reported by Punchbowl News.

The White House National Security Council declined to comment on Zelenskyy’s plans, including whether he would meet with Biden at the White House.

Meanwhile, the Treasury and State departments announced they were imposing new sanctions on more than 150 individuals and entities connected with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the U.S. was “continuing our relentless work to target Russia’s military supply chains and deprive (Russian President Vladimir) Putin of the equipment, technology, and services he needs to wage his barbaric war on Ukraine.”

Congress is increasingly divided over providing additional funding for Ukraine as the war is well into its second year. Biden has sought a package of $13.1 billion in additional military aid for Ukraine and $8.5 billion for humanitarian support. It also includes $2.3 billion for financing and to catalyze donors through the World Bank.

But conservative Republican lawmakers have been pushing for broad federal spending cuts and some of those allied with Donald Trump, the former president, are specifically looking to stop money to Ukraine.

Congress is working to pass its annual appropriations bills before a Sept. 30 deadline to keep the U.S. government running.

After touring launch pads with Putin at a remote space base in Russia’s Far East, Kim expressed “full and unconditional support” and said Pyongyang will always stand with Moscow on the “anti-imperialist” front.

The leaders met at the Vostochny Cosmodrome for a summit that underscores how their interests are aligning in the face of their countries’ separate, intensifying confrontations with the United States.

North Korea may have tens of millions of aging artillery shells and rockets based on Soviet designs that could give a huge boost to the Russian army in Ukraine, analysts say.

But either buying arms from or providing rocket technology to North Korea would violate international sanctions that Russia has supported in the past.

The decision to meet at Cosmodrome, Russia’s most important launch center on its own soil, suggests that Kim is seeking Russian help developing military reconnaissance satellites, which he has described as crucial to enhance the threat of his nuclear-capable missiles. In recent months, North Korea has repeatedly failed to put its first military spy satellite into orbit.

Putin welcomed Kim’s limousine, brought from Pyongyang in the North Korean leader’s special armored train, at the entrance to the launch facility with a handshake that lasted around 40 seconds. In his opening remarks, Putin welcomed Kim to Russia and said he was glad to see him, saying the talks would cover economic cooperation, humanitarian issues and the “situation in the region.”

Kim, in turn, expressed support for Moscow’s efforts to defend its interests, in an apparent reference to the war in Ukraine. “Russia is waging a sacred fight to defend its sovereignty, security interests and justice,” the North Korean leader said. “I take this opportunity to affirm that we will always stand with Russia on the anti-imperialist front.”

The two men began their meeting with a tour of a Soyuz-2 space rocket launch facility, at which Kim peppered a Russian space official with questions about the rockets.

Kim and Putin then met together with their delegations and later one-on-one, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. After the talks, the Russian president threw an official lunch for Kim, Russian state media reported.

The meeting came hours after North Korea fired two ballistic missiles toward the sea, extending a highly provocative run in North Korean weapons testing since the start of 2022, as Kim used the distraction caused by Putin’s war on Ukraine to accelerate his weapons development.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t immediately say how far the North Korean missiles flew. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the missiles landed in the waters outside of the country’s exclusive economic zones and there were no reports of damages to vessels or aircraft.

Official photos showed that Kim was accompanied by Pak Thae Song, chairman of North Korea’s space science and technology committee, and navy Adm. Kim Myong Sik, who are linked with North Korean efforts to acquire spy satellites and nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarines, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.

Asked whether Russia will help North Korea build satellites, Putin was quoted by Russian state media as saying “that’s why we have come here. The DPRK leader shows keen interest in rocket technology. They’re trying to develop space, too,” using the abbreviation for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Asked about military cooperation, Putin said “we will talk about all issues without a rush. There is time.”

Kim also brought Jo Chun Ryong, a ruling party official in charge of munitions policies, who joined him on recent tours of factories producing artillery shells and missile, according to South Korea.

Despite the recent frequency of North Korean missile firings, Wednesday’s launches on the eve of the summit came as a surprise. South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said it was the first time the North launched a missile while Kim was traveling overseas.

Kim could have ordered the launches to make a point to Putin about North Korea’s defense posture and show that he remains in close control of the country’s military activities even while abroad, said Moon Seong Mook, an analyst with the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.

Moon, a retired South Korean brigadier general who participated in past inter-Korean military talks, said the North with the launches could have also intended to express its anger toward the United States, after State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a press briefing that Putin was meeting “an international pariah to ask for assistance in a war.”

The United States has accused North Korea of providing Russia with arms, including selling artillery shells to the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Both Russian and North Korean officials denied such claims.

Speculation about military cooperation grew after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited North Korea in July. Kim subsequently toured his weapons factories, which experts said had the dual goal of encouraging the modernization of North Korean weaponry and examining artillery and other supplies that could be exported to Russia.

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Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Associated Press journalists Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia; Aamer Madhani and Matthew Lee in Washington; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Dake Kang and Ng Han Guan in Fangchuan, China; Haruka Nuga and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo; and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim boarded his personal train Sunday afternoon, accompanied by unspecified members of the country’s ruling party, government and military.

South Korea‘s military assessed the train crossed into Russia sometime early Tuesday, Jeon Ha Gyu, spokesperson of South Korea’s Defense Ministry, said in a briefing without elaborating on how the military obtained the information.

Officials identified in North Korean state media photos may hint at what Kim might seek from Putin and what he would be willing to give.

Kim Jong Un is apparently bringing Jo Chun Ryong, a ruling party official in charge of munitions policies who accompanied the leader on recent tours of factories producing artillery shells and missiles, said South Korea’s Unification Ministry.

North Korea may have tens of millions of artillery shells and rockets based on Soviet designs that could give a huge boost to the Russian army in Ukraine, analysts say.

Also identified in photos were Pak Thae Song, chairman of North Korea’s space science and technology committee, and Navy Adm. Kim Myong Sik, who are linked with North Korean efforts to acquire spy satellites and nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarines. Experts say North Korea would struggle to acquire such capabilities without external help, although it’s not clear if Russia would share such sensitive technologies.

Kim may also seek badly needed energy and food aid, analysts say.

Kim’s delegation likely includes his foreign minister, Choe Sun Hui, and his top two military officials, Korean People’s Army Marshals Ri Pyong Chol and Pak Jong Chon.

Kim and Putin may meet in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, where Putin arrived Monday to attend an international forum that runs through Wednesday, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. Putin’s first meeting with Kim was held in 2019 in the city, which is about 425 miles (680 kilometers) north of Pyongyang.

Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying Putin and Kim will meet after the Vladivostok forum, but the reports didn’t specify when or where.

Peskov said the meeting would include a lunch in Kim’s honor.

Deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko said that Russia will inform South Korea about the meeting’s outcome upon request: “The South Koreans have an embassy in Moscow. If they want, we can provide them with the information we have.”

Kim Jong Un is making his first foreign trip since the COVID-19 pandemic, during which North Korea imposed tight border controls for more than three years.

Associated Press journalists near the North Korea-Russia frontier saw a green train with yellow trim similar to one Kim used during previous foreign trips at a station on the North Korean side of a border river on Monday.

U.S. officials released intelligence last week that North Korea and Russia were arranging a meeting between their leaders.

According to U.S. officials, Putin could focus on securing more supplies of North Korean artillery and other ammunition to refill declining reserves as he seeks to rebuff a Ukrainian counteroffensive and show that he’s capable of grinding out a long war of attrition. That could potentially put more pressure on the U.S. and its partners to pursue negotiations as concerns over a protracted conflict grow despite their huge shipments of advanced weaponry to Ukraine in the past 17 months.

“Arms discussions between Russia and the DPRK are expected to continue during Kim Jong Un’s trip to Russia,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “We urge the DPRK to abide by the public commitments that Pyongyang has made to not provide or sell arms to Russia.”

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington will monitor the meeting closely, reminding both countries that “any transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia would be a violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions,” and that the U.S. “will not hesitate to impose new sanctions.”

After decades of a complicated, hot-and-cold relationship, Russia and North Korea have been drawing closer since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The bond has been driven by Putin’s need for war help and Kim’s efforts to boost the visibility of his partnerships with traditional allies Moscow and Beijing as he tries to break out of diplomatic isolation and have North Korea be part of a united front against Washington.

The United States has accused North Korea of providing Russia with arms, including selling artillery shells to the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Both Russian and North Korean officials denied such claims.

But speculation about the countries’ military cooperation grew after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made a rare visit to North Korea in July, when Kim invited him to an arms exhibition and a massive military parade in the capital where he showcased ICBMs designed to target the U.S. mainland.

Following that visit, Kim toured North Korea’s weapons factories, including a facility producing artillery systems where he urged workers to speed up the development and large-scale production of new kinds of ammunition. Experts say Kim’s visits to the factories likely had a dual goal of encouraging the modernization of North Korean weaponry and examining artillery and other supplies that could be exported to Russia.

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Associated Press journalists Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia; Aamer Madhani and Matthew Lee in Washington; and Dake Kang and Ng Han Guan in Fangchuan, China, contributed to this report.