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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invoked the Sept. 11 and Pearl Harbor attacks during an impassioned address to Congress on Wednesday, pleading with American leaders to do more to help stop his country's war with Russia.
Zelenskyy thanked the United States and its allies for their support but also urged more Western military aid for his country's defensive efforts, with Kyiv and other key cities facing intense bombardment.
Ukraine's leader repeated his request for a no-fly zone as Russian forces stepped up their aerial attacks on civilian areas. The Kremlin has warned against such a move and threatened Western shipments of military aid, but its struggles on the ground have raised hopes Moscow might be open to a diplomatic solution.
President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that $800 million of a $13.6 billion spending package for Ukraine will go toward security assistance, bringing the total the U.S. has pledged to $1 billion in the past week.
Russia and Ukraine remain in talks and both sides have signaled that there may be reasons for optimism — but key differences remain and the fighting continues.
Social media platforms fight to keep their sites available in Russia
Ukraine, Russia continue negotiations over video
LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian and Russian delegations held talks again Wednesday by video.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s adviser Mikhailo Podolyak said Ukraine demanded a cease-fire, the withdrawal of Russian troops and legal security guarantees for Ukraine from a number of countries.
“This is possible only through direct dialogue” between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said on Twitter.
Russia has demanded that NATO pledge never to admit Ukraine to the alliance or station forces there.
After Tuesday’s negotiations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said a neutral military status for Ukraine was being “seriously discussed” by the two sides, while Zelenskyy said Russia’s demands for ending the war were becoming “more realistic.”
Ukraine’s military says it hit Kherson airport
LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian military forces have dealt a punishing blow to the airport in Kherson, which Russian troops had seized early in the war, the General Staff said late Wednesday. It said the Russians were trying to remove any surviving military equipment.
Ukraine’s military said it hit the airport on Tuesday. Satellite photos taken afterward by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by The Associated Press show helicopters and vehicles on fire at the air base.
Russia seized the southern port city without a fight in the first days of the war. Control over Kherson allows Russia to restore fresh water supplies to Crimea; Ukraine cut off the water after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014.
The General Staff said Russia’s ground offensive on major Ukrainian cities has largely stalled.
What it's like inside refugee shelter above Lviv train station
Captured Melitopol mayor is freed, Zelenskyy says in latest video
The mayor of the Ukrainian city Melitopol has been freed after being captured by Russian forces on Friday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.
Ukrainian diplomat Olexander Scherba said in a tweet that the country conducted a "special operation" and rescued Ivan Fedorov from Luhansk, an eight-hour drive from Melitopol.
"Melitopol is Ukraine!" he said in the tweet.
Zelenskyy had previously decried the kidnapping, saying in a video that Fedorov is a "mayor who had bravely defended Ukraine and the people in his community." Zelenskyy called his capture a "sign of weakness of the invaders."
On Wednesday, the Ukrainian president said Russian forces attempted to coerce Fedorov to cooperate but "our guy is our guy, so he withstood, did not give up."
Zelenskyy added in his video address that 6,000 Mariupol residents were evacuated Wednesday, more than 2,000 of them children. He reiterated that a death toll remains unknown after a theater where hundreds of civilians had sought refuge was bombed during a Russian airstrike.
UNICEF: 55 children flee Ukraine every minute
Every minute, an average of 55 children flee Ukraine, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said Wednesday in Geneva. Put another way, a Ukrainian child has become a refugee almost every second since Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24.
"Like all children driven from their homes by war and conflict, Ukrainian children arriving in neighboring countries are at significant risk of family separation, violence, sexual exploitation and trafficking," Elder said. "They are in desperate need of safety, stability and child protection services, especially those who are unaccompanied or have been separated from their families."
More than 1.5 million children have evacuated Ukraine in the three weeks since the war began, roughly half of all refugees scattered through the region. UNICEF said it has mobilized additional teams to help with protective and mental health services for children who remain in the embattled country.
"The safest and fastest way out of this catastrophe — indeed, the only way out of this catastrophe — is for this war to end, and to end now," Elder said. "We must be clear: Despite tireless efforts from volunteer grandmothers to governments, scouts to U.N. agencies, so long as this war continues, the situation for Ukraine’s children will only get worse."
U.S. seeing increased Russian naval activity near Odesa, defense official says
The U.S. is seeing increased Russian naval activity in the area around the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday.
The naval force in the northern Black Sea around Odesa includes Russian LSTs — landing ships and surface combatant ships, the official said, adding that Russian ships have been shelling some cities outside Odesa.
It’s not clear if the movements are a precursor to a larger amphibious assault, the official continued, characterizing the activity as "a change to maritime environment."
Citizens in the city, one of the largest in Ukraine, have been girding for an assault by Russian forces, including by filling and moving over 400,000 sandbags, sometimes while breaking out in song.
Odesa is home to the country's National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, and despite the threat of a Russian attack, its orchestra performed an open-air concert on Saturday to support Zelenskyy's call for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
France opens war crimes investigation into killing of Fox News cameraman
France has opened a war crimes investigation into the killing of Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski.
Zakrzewski, who was French-Irish, died Monday after Russian forces fired at a car he and two other people were traveling in near Kyiv. Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra "Sasha" Kuvshynova, who was working with Fox News, was also killed, and Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall was injured.
France's investigation, led by anti-terrorist prosecutors, will examine whether there was an "intentional attack on a person protected by international law" and if the there was a "deliberate attack on civilians not taking part in hostilities."
Kremlin calls Biden's comments 'unacceptable and unforgivable'
President Joe Biden's characterization of Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "war criminal" was "unacceptable and unforgivable," a spokesman for the Kremlin said Wednesday.
"We consider unacceptable and unforgivable such rhetoric of the head of the state, whose bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
In a brief exchange with reporters earlier Wednesday, Biden was asked whether he believes Putin is a war criminal. He answered no and then asked the reporter to repeat the question. In response, Biden said: "I think he is a war criminal."