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Thursday, March 24, 2022
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RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR

 * liveUpdates
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 * How We Cover the War
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 * Roots of the Ukraine War


WHAT HAPPENED ON DAY 27 OF RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE

As he heads to Europe, President Biden will press U.S. allies to help impose
even more aggressive sanctions on Russia.

Published March 22, 2022Updated March 24, 2022, 1:12 a.m. ET

Follow the latest updates on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Image
A refugee family from Ukraine waiting for a minibus after crossing the border in
the small village of Palanca, in eastern Moldova, on Tuesday.Credit...Mauricio
Lima for The New York Times

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Neil MacFarquhar


UKRAINIANS TRY TO PUSH BACK RUSSIAN FORCES PUMMELING THEIR CITIES.

Image

A civilian guarding a defense checkpoint on the road to Zhytomyr, near the
Ukrainian village of Mala Racha on Tuesday. Most of the civilians volunteering
with the unit lacked military training.Credit...Nuno Veiga/EPA, via Shutterstock

Ukrainian forces pressed to thwart the Russian invasion, mounting
counteroffensives on multiple fronts and retaking a town outside of Kyiv on
Tuesday, while the more heavily armed Russians, unable so far to gain a decisive
upper hand, tried to pound Ukraine’s cities and people into submission.

As the fighting seesawed around Kyiv, Ukrainian military officials said their
forces had prevailed in Makariv, a key crossroads on the western approaches to
the city, while in the south of the country they sought to reclaim the Kherson
region. The southern port of Mariupol still endured a brutal siege, however,
with the government saying that some 100,000 civilians remained trapped in that
ruined city with little food, water, power or heat.

“This war will not end easily or rapidly,” Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national
security adviser, told reporters on the eve of President Biden’s departure for a
NATO summit in Europe.

Mr. Biden is set to impose sanctions this week on hundreds of members of the
State Duma, Russia’s lower house of Parliament, according to a person familiar
with the planned announcement.

In Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin’s government, which had apparently
expected a lightning conquest, responded to its setbacks in Ukraine and its
plummeting reputation in the West by expanding its recent draconian crackdown on
dissent, making it a criminal offense to discredit the activities of all state
agencies working abroad, like embassies. A Russian court sentenced the already
imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, who opposes Russia’s war on
Ukraine, to nine more years in prison on fraud charges.

A Pentagon assessment concluded that Russia’s “combat power” in Ukraine had for
the first time dipped below 90 percent of its original force — the more than
150,000 troops massed in western Russia and Belarus before the Feb. 24 invasion.
That reflected steady losses suffered by the Russian military, to an extent that
U.S. officials say can leave units unable to carry out combat duties.

Image

Shielded by sandbags at a children’s hospital in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, nurses
cared for a 13-year-old girl who was hit by a bullet while leaving Mariupol with
her family.Credit...Emre Caylak/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Russian forces were “struggling on many fronts,” including routine supply lines
and logistics, according to a senior Defense Department official, who was not
authorized to discuss details of Russia’s actions in Ukraine on the record. The
Pentagon had even seen indications that some Russian troops had been evacuated
because of frostbite, the official said.

The official declined to address Russian casualty numbers, though the Pentagon
estimated last week that at least 7,000 Russians had been killed.

New satellite imagery analyzed by The New York Times showed that Russia had
removed all of its aircraft from the airport of the southern city of Kherson,
the largest city that the Russian forces have captured so far. Ukrainian forces
have claimed to hit the airport twice, destroying an undetermined number of
helicopters. The removal is a telltale sign that the Russians are struggling as
they seek to control the region, experts said.

The removal of the equipment, visible by comparing pictures taken by the space
imaging company Planet Labs over six days, comes as the Ukrainian army is
pressing to reclaim lost territory in the Kherson region.

Image

Satellite imagery shows that Russia removed military aircraft from an airport in
Kherson, Ukraine.Credit...Planet Labs

Control over Kherson, taken by Russia on March 2, is essential in any effort to
control the south of Ukraine. But Russia has failed to dominate the region as a
whole.

Dmitri S. Peskov, the spokesman for Mr. Putin, repeatedly refused to rule out
the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons during a television interview on
Tuesday. When asked under what conditions Mr. Putin would use such weapons, Mr.
Peskov told CNN, “if it is an existential threat for our country, then it can
be.” While he did not define “existential threat,” in the past Russian officials
have suggested that it meant an attack on Russia itself, but the invasion of
Ukraine has thrown previous policy into question.

It is hard to assess the current landscape of the war there, with a senior U.S.
defense official only characterizing the fighting as “a very dynamic, active
battlefront.”

The Pentagon has seen no indication that Russian forces are moving toward the
use of chemical or biological weapons, the official said.

On Monday, Mr. Biden stressed the possibility that Mr. Putin might turn to such
weapons, which are banned by international treaty. “His back is against the
wall,” Mr. Biden said at a meeting of U.S. business leaders.

Mr. Biden is due to attend a summit of NATO leaders in Brussels on Thursday that
among other issues will discuss a potential response to any such weapons. The
United States will also announce new sanctions on Russia in conjunction with its
NATO allies, said Mr. Sullivan.

“For the past few months, the West has been united,” he said. “The president is
traveling to Europe to ensure we stay united, to cement our collective resolve,
to send a powerful message that we are prepared and committed to this for as
long as it takes.”

Image

A destroyed armored personnel carrier stands in the central square of the
Ukrainian town of Makariv earlier this month, where control of the town has
repeatedly changed hands.Credit...Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press

In Ukraine, the Defense Ministry announced that its troops had raised the blue
and gold Ukrainian flag over Makariv, about 40 miles west of Kyiv, where control
has repeatedly changed hands. The town abuts the key highway that leads from the
capital to western Ukraine and Lviv, so keeping it out of Russian hands is
important in the effort to prevent Kyiv from being encircled.

The Russians had not been able to advance beyond nine miles northwest of Kyiv or
18 miles from the city’s east — essentially where they were last week, the
senior Pentagon official said.

The Ukrainian determination to push back extended to the air force and air
defense units, which have managed to continue fighting despite being vastly
outnumbered and outgunned by the Russians.



President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that the besieged city of Mariupol,
a port on the Sea of Azov, was being “reduced to ashes.” Some 100,000 civilians,
or 22 percent of the original population, remain stuck there, the government
said. The Pentagon official said that Russian naval ships had joined land forces
in bombarding the city. Russia’s Black Sea fleet is headquartered on the nearby
Crimean Peninsula, and a dozen ships are plying the waters off Ukraine,
according to the Pentagon.

Mr. Zelensky, continuing to address parliaments around the world via video link,
warned Italy’s Parliament that famine would strike parts of the world if farmers
in Ukraine, a major wheat producer, were unable to work. “Famine was approaching
for several countries” that depended on Ukrainian corn, oil and wheat, he said,
including North African states just across the Mediterranean Sea from Italy.

Image

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the TV set at a bar in downtown Lviv
on Tuesday. Ukrainian fighters continued to push back on Russian efforts to
occupy major cities like Mariupol.Credit...Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

In response, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy said that his country wanted
Ukraine to join the European Union, and praised the “heroic” resistance of the
Ukrainians against the “ferociousness” of Mr. Putin.

Mr. Draghi said that Italy had frozen more than 800 million euros (almost $900
million) worth of assets from Russian oligarchs and was working to overcome its
dependency on Russian energy supplies as fast as possible.

At the United Nations, António Guterres, the secretary general, said that 10
million Ukrainians had been displaced from their homes, or just under one
quarter of the population.

Mr. Guterres called the war in Ukraine unwinnable. Ukrainians were “enduring a
living hell — and the reverberations are being felt worldwide with skyrocketing
food, energy and fertilizer prices threatening to spiral into a global hunger
crisis,” he said. Guterres repeated his plea for Russia to stop the war, calling
for serious negotiations.

The Russian Parliament, the Duma, which reliably does the Kremlin’s bidding,
amended an already draconian censorship law to make “discrediting” the
activities abroad of all government bodies — not just the military — a
potentially criminal offense. The law bars terms like “war” or “invasion” to
describe Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, punishing anyone spreading
“false information” about the invasion with up to 15 years in prison. Russia has
taken other moves to quell information, prompting independent news outlets to
shut down or move operations out of the country for fear of punishment, and it
has blocked access to Facebook and Instagram, both heavily used by government
officials and businesses.

The conviction and sentencing of Mr. Navalny was widely seen as a way to keep
him behind bars and further restrict his ability to address the outside world,
as the Kremlin tries to tightly control the narrative about the war at home and
stamp out glimmers of defiance. Mr. Navalny has urged Russians to protest the
invasion, via letters from jail that his lawyers post on social media.

Image

Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who is against the invasion of
Ukraine, via video link from a courtroom outside Moscow. He was sentenced to
nine more years on fraud charges.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Zhanna Agalakova, an accomplished Russian foreign correspondent who resigned
earlier this month from Channel One, among the most popular networks in a
country where the state controls virtually all broadcasts, announced that she
had quit to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “I’m doing this for Russians,”
she said in a series of Twitter posts via Reporters Without Borders. “Our news
doesn’t show the reality.”

Reporting was contributed by John Ismay and Michael D. Shear in Washington; Marc
Santora in Krakow, Poland; Andrew E. Kramer in Kyiv, Ukraine; Dan Bilefsky in
Montreal; Anton Troianovski in Istanbul; Valeriya Safronova; Gaia Pianigiani in
Rome; Christiaan Triebert in Paje, Tanzania; and Christoph Koettl and Farnaz
Fassihi in New York.


Show more
March 23, 2022, 6:06 a.m. ETMarch 23, 2022
March 23, 2022, 6:06 a.m. ET

Carlotta Gall


A RUSSIAN MULTIPLE-ROCKET ATTACK CAUSES WIDE DAMAGE IN CENTRAL KYIV.

Image

“First there was smoke and then everything went black,” said Svetlana Ilyuhina,
whose home in Kyiv, Ukraine, was hit on Wednesday.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The
New York Times

KYIV, Ukraine — A hail of rockets slammed into a residential area near the
center of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, on Wednesday morning, setting off a burst
of explosions from what seemed to be Russian Grad missiles fired from a
multiple-rocket launcher system, the first time such weapons have struck central
Kyiv.

The strikes caused extensive damage, including setting a house on fire and
damaging apartment buildings, but left few casualties.

Vladimir Okremenko, 71, and his sister were at home in their shared one-story
house when two rockets hit without warning.

“First there was smoke, and then everything went black,” his sister, Svetlana
Ilyuhina, said. Within minutes, fire had taken hold, but both escaped with only
cuts.

A few streets over, six rockets exploded beside a main avenue, splintering trees
and apartment complexes.

Vladimir Bogdanov, 80, narrowly escaped injury, sitting on his couch when
shrapnel tore into his front room and gouged holes in the ceiling and walls.

The sounds of artillery fire and Grads sounded from the northwestern suburbs
where fierce fighting continues.

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March 23, 2022, 6:02 a.m. ETMarch 23, 2022
March 23, 2022, 6:02 a.m. ET

Anton Troianovski

Reporting from Istanbul

The Kremlin says a NATO peacekeeping mission to Ukraine, which Poland plans to
propose on Thursday, “would be a very reckless and extremely dangerous
decision.” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, warned in comments to
reporters on Wednesday that “any possible contact between our military and the
NATO military can lead to quite understandable, hard-to-repair consequences.”

March 23, 2022, 5:27 a.m. ETMarch 23, 2022
March 23, 2022, 5:27 a.m. ET

The New York Times

In response to a report that President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to speak to
President Xi of China, a government spokesman said that it would “play a
constructive role” to promote de-escalation. The spokesman didn’t say whether
there were plans for the two leaders to talk.

March 23, 2022, 5:10 a.m. ETMarch 23, 2022
March 23, 2022, 5:10 a.m. ET

Ben Dooley

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has started delivering remarks by video
feed to the Parliament of Japan, where he is expected to ask lawmakers for more
assistance in his efforts to defend against Russia.

March 23, 2022, 5:08 a.m. ETMarch 23, 2022
March 23, 2022, 5:08 a.m. ET

Valerie Hopkins


A CELLIST PLAYS BACH IN THE RUINED STREETS OF KHARKIV, HIS HOMETOWN.

LVIV, Ukraine — Denys Karachevtsev has played his cello in some of the most
prestigious concert halls in Austria, Japan and Turkey and even in Tunisia’s
ancient amphitheater, El Jem. Now he is playing in the ruins of his Ukrainian
hometown, Kharkiv.



In a recently posted video, Mr. Karachevtsev performs Bach’s somber Cello Suite
No. 5 in the center of a deserted street strewn with the debris. His backdrop:
the regional police headquarters, its windows blown out by Russian shelling.

On Facebook, he said he hoped to draw attention to the plight of the city,
Ukraine’s second largest, which has been bombed mercilessly by the Russian
military. Ukraine’s police said that as of March 20 more than 600 multistory
buildings in Kharkiv, including schools, had been destroyed.

“I am a cellist and a citizen of Kharkiv,” Mr. Karachevtsev wrote in an appeal
on Facebook in English, Ukrainian and Russian.

“I love my heroic city, which is now struggling to survive the war,” he wrote.
“I deeply believe that we can help. I believe we can restore and rebuild our
city and our country when the war is over. I am launching my project in the
streets of Kharkiv to raise funds for humanitarian aid and restoration of the
city’s architecture. Let’s unite to revive our city together!”

In recent days, Mr. Karachevtsev has performed the national anthem of Ukraine in
the city center.

Mr. Karachevtsev is a graduate of the Ukrainian National Tchaikovsky Academy of
Music, in the capital, Kyiv. His performance called to mind stories of Ukrainian
musicians performing in extreme conditions, like Vera Lytovchenko, who played
lullabies on her violin in a Kyiv bomb shelter. Or the professional pianist
Irina Maniukina playing Chopin’s Aeolian Harp Étude on a baby grand piano that
survived a missile strike on her hometown Bila Tserkva, before leaving home for
the last time. The rest of the apartment was covered in debris and shards of
glass. As she sat down to play, she brushed the patina of destruction off the
keys.

During the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo that ended in 1996, Vedran
Smajlovic played Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor on his cello in ruined buildings,
including the Vijecnica, the Bosnian capital’s destroyed city hall. He also
played at funerals despite the threat of sniper fire. His powerful music became
a sign of resilience and of the triumph of humanity over brutality.

Now it is Mr. Karachevtsev doing the same.

Correction: 
March 23, 2022

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the Bach piece
performed by Mr. Karachevtsev. It was Cello Suite No. 5, not No. 1.

Show more
March 23, 2022, 4:53 a.m. ETMarch 23, 2022
March 23, 2022, 4:53 a.m. ET

Victoria Kim

Reporting from Seoul

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine expects to speak to China’s top leader,
Xi Jinping, “very soon,” a top Zelensky aide said. China “should play a more
noticeable role to bring this war to the end,” Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s
presidential office, told a British research organization.

March 23, 2022, 4:30 a.m. ETMarch 23, 2022
March 23, 2022, 4:30 a.m. ET

Megan Specia


HERE ARE THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN UKRAINE.

The world was poised for a renewed diplomatic push to intensify pressure on
Russia as the fourth week of the war in Ukraine draws to a close on Wednesday
amid a fierce counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces.

President Biden will land in Brussels on Wednesday evening and he is set to
announce new sanctions on Russian lawmakers before meeting with NATO allies and
the European Union. He will then travel to Poland later in the week as he seeks
a stronger international response to Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, in a ritual overnight address updating
Ukrainians, said on Wednesday that peace negotiations with Russia were moving
forward “step by step,” even as his nation’s military stepped up the pressure on
Russian forces and their supply lines. But Russia has warned that the same peace
talks were not progressing.

In recent days, Ukrainian forces have retaken ground in the northwestern suburbs
of Kyiv and around the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv, according to military
analysts.

On Tuesday night, Russia’s top spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Christiane
Amanpour on CNN that he refused to rule out the possibility of using nuclear
weapons, a move that highlighted what is at stake in the war. He added that they
could be used only in the event of an “existential threat” to Russia. The United
States called those comments “reckless.”

In other diplomatic efforts, the United Nations General Assembly will consider a
humanitarian resolution sponsored by Ukraine and several other member states.

António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, urged Russia to make
concerted efforts toward peace. “This war is unwinnable,” he told journalists
outside the Security Council in New York. “The only question is: How many more
lives must be lost?” he added.

In other major developments:

 * The apparent lack of progress by Russian forces and the striking number of
   senior military commanders believed to have been killed in the fighting are
   signs of the failures of President Vladimir V. Putin’s campaign in Ukraine.

 * In Kyiv, a hail of rockets landed in a residential area near the city center,
   causing extensive damage but few casualties. They appeared to be from a
   Russian Grad multiple rocket launcher, the first time such weapons have
   struck the heart of the Ukrainian capital.

 * New satellite imagery showed that Russia has withdrawn most of its
   helicopters from a strategic airport in Kherson, a move that could be a sign
   of military setbacks in the south.

 * The Ukrainian military on Wednesday warned of signs that Russian and
   Belarusian military equipment was being moved across Belarus and accumulating
   along the Ukrainian border.

 * President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine expects to speak to China’s top
   leader, Xi Jinping, “very soon,” a top Zelensky aide said.

 * In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city and a major target of Russian
   bombardment, a cellist performed a somber Bach suite on a debris-strewn
   street. The cellist, Denys Karachevtsev, said he hoped his widely shared
   video would draw aid and attention for his “heroic” hometown.

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March 23, 2022, 4:23 a.m. ETMarch 23, 2022
March 23, 2022, 4:23 a.m. ET

Marc Santora

The Ukrainian government accused Russian forces of hijacking a humanitarian
convoy on a route agreed upon with the Red Cross near Mariupol. Iryna
Vereshchuk, a Ukrainian deputy prime minister, said that an unspecified number
of emergency service workers and bus drivers had been taken hostage.

March 22, 2022, 10:36 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 10:36 p.m. ET

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Reporting from Washington

A day after President Biden warned about cyberattacks from Russia, cybersecurity
officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security held a three-hour call
with over 13,000 representatives from risk management agencies, local
governments and companies.

March 22, 2022, 8:32 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 8:32 p.m. ET

Azi Paybarah

In President Zelensky’s daily address, he repeated his call for additional
sanctions on Russia. This time he said they should be aimed at people
“responsible for this war.” The comments came as President Biden heads to
Brussels on Wednesday and is expected to announce new sanctions aimed at Russian
lawmakers.

Image

Credit...Ukraine Presidency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
March 22, 2022, 7:59 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 7:59 p.m. ET

Azi Paybarah

President Zelensky said that efforts to “force Russia to peace” were difficult
and “sometimes scandalous” but that “step by step we are moving forward.” In an
address to Ukrainians early Wednesday, Zelensky also said 7,026 Mariupol
residents had been recently evacuated, though that number was not independently
verified.

March 22, 2022, 7:45 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 7:45 p.m. ET

Mauricio Lima


UKRAINIAN REFUGEES FIND A COMMUNITY OF SUPPORT IN MOLDOVA.



Refugees from Odessa, Ukraine, help local cooks prepare a meal at a community
center in the small village of Tudora in eastern Moldova, near the border with
Ukraine. Sasha Gurushuk, 31, who worked as a seamstress at a clothing factory in
Odessa, buys food at a grocery store in Tudora.

About 20 refugee Ukrainian women who crossed with their children into Moldova
last week are staying at homes in the village and have been going each day to
the center, which provides lunch and activities.


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March 22, 2022, 7:36 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 7:36 p.m. ET

Michael D. Shear

Reporting from Washington

President Biden will impose sanctions this week on hundreds of members of the
State Duma, Russia’s lower house of Parliament, according to a person familiar
with the planned announcement. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the
sanctions.

March 22, 2022, 7:14 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 7:14 p.m. ET

Christina Morales


NEW YORK CITY RESTAURANTS RAISE FUNDS FOR UKRAINE.

Image

Veselka, a Ukrainian restaurant in Manhattan’s East Village, has been raising
funds for war-related humanitarian efforts by selling bowls of
borscht.Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, restaurateurs around the world mobilized
to raise money for refugee organizations through efforts like bake sales. As the
conflict stretches into nearly a month, New York City restaurant groups continue
to donate large portions of their revenue to help Ukrainians.

Keith McNally, the owner of Balthazar, Morandi and Minetta Tavern, plans to give
the proceeds from all dinners sold on Tuesday to UNICEF’s efforts for Ukrainian
children, he announced on Instagram. On an average Tuesday night, Mr. McNally
said, Balthazar takes in $35,000 to $40,000 in revenue; Minetta Tavern about
$20,000; and Morandi another $15,000. It is the second time he has earmarked
thousands of dollars from an evening’s dinner for Ukrainian charities.

Veselka, a Ukrainian diner in the East Village, has raised donations since the
beginning of the war by selling bowls of borscht.

As of Friday, the restaurant had raised $60,000 just on the sales of the soup,
said Jason Birchard, a third-generation owner of Veselka and a Ukrainian
American. He estimated that the restaurant would raise $75,000 by the end of the
week.

People have called seeking to buy bowls of soup for the restaurant’s patrons;
others have sent donations directly to Mr. Birchard via Venmo. Mr. Birchard is
also working with the St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church to send food,
sleeping bags and first-aid supplies to Ukraine. He said he has collected about
$100,000 worth of items so far.

“It’s very disturbing that we’re talking about this going into a month. It’s
very sad, and I’m very concerned about the staff’s mentality going forward,” he
said, adding that many of his employees are from Ukraine. “It’s like waking up
from a bad dream every day and hoping it gets better.”

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March 22, 2022, 6:20 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 6:20 p.m. ET

Azi Paybarah


A KREMLIN SPOKESMAN SAYS RUSSIA COULD USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS IF THERE IS ‘AN
EXISTENTIAL THREAT FOR OUR COUNTRY.’

Image

A monument of the Soviet tactical nuclear bomb, RDS-4, in Moscow last
year.Credit...Maxim Shipenkov/EPA, via Shutterstock

Russia would consider using its nuclear weapons if it felt there was “an
existential threat for our country,” a Kremlin spokesman said in an
English-language television interview on Tuesday. The spokesman, Dmitri S.
Peskov, made the comment after describing Ukraine, the neighboring country
Russia invaded a month ago, as having been created by anti-Russian Western
powers.

Mr. Peskov was speaking in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Video
excerpts from the interview were posted on her Twitter account.

In it, Ms. Amanpour asked Mr. Peskov several times whether Russia’s president,
Vladimir V. Putin, intended to use nuclear weapons.

Mr. Peskov initially replied by characterizing the invasion of Ukraine as a
defensive move to protect Russia. “President Putin intends to make the world
listen to and understand our concerns,” Mr. Peskov said. “But no one would
listen to us.”



Ukraine, he added, “was formed by the Western countries, anti-Russia.” After Ms.
Amanpour audibly sighed, Mr. Peskov added, “This is the problem.”

Putin’s possible use of nuclear weapons has been a concern for the United States
and NATO members as they consider how to defend Ukraine without escalating the
conflict with Russia. Days after the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Putin
announced that he was putting his nuclear forces into “special combat
readiness,” which is a heightened alert status reminiscent of some of the most
dangerous moments of the Cold War.

When Ms. Amanpour asked again about Putin’s potential for using nuclear weapons,
Mr. Peskov referred to Russia’s “concept of domestic security,” which he said is
a publicly available document.

“You can read all the reasons for nuclear arms to be used,” he said. “So, if it
is an existential threat for our country, then it can be used in accordance with
our concern.”

Ms. Amanpour concluded that portion of the interview by saying Mr. Peskov was
being purposely vague.

“I still don’t know whether I have a full answer from you,” she said, “and I’m
just going to assume from you that President Putin wants to scare the world and
keep the world on tenterhooks.”

The interview left some room to interpret where Russia stood on the matter. A
CNN headline declared that Mr. Peskov “refuses to rule out” the use of nuclear
weapons. A Reuters news service headline, hedging slightly, announced, “Kremlin:
Russia would only use nuclear weapons if its existence were threatened.”

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March 22, 2022, 5:44 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 5:44 p.m. ET

Valerie Hopkins

Reporting from Lviv, Ukraine

Russian aircraft dropped two heavy bombs on the besieged city of Mariupol today,
but the city remains in Ukrainian hands, city officials said. An assistant to
the city’s mayor told The Times that the 3,000 soldiers defending Mariupol were
battling an estimated 14,000 Russian troops.

March 22, 2022, 5:07 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 5:07 p.m. ET

Edward Wong and Ana Swanson


THE WAR IN UKRAINE AND THE PANDEMIC HAVE FORCED NATIONS TO RETREAT FROM
GLOBALIZATION.

Image

A woman walks past a closed Louis Vuitton store in Moscow last week. Many
American and European countries stopped doing business in Russia after the
invasion of Ukraine.Credit...Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

WASHINGTON — When the Cold War ended, governments and companies believed that
stronger global economic ties would lead to greater stability. But the Ukraine
war and the pandemic are pushing the world in the opposite direction and
upending those ideas.

Important parts of the integrated economy are unwinding. American and European
officials are now using sanctions to sever major parts of the Russian economy —
the 11th largest in the world — from global commerce, and hundreds of Western
companies have halted operations in Russia on their own. Amid the pandemic,
companies are reorganizing how they obtain their goods because of soaring costs
and unpredictable delays in global supply chains.

Western officials and executives are also rethinking how they do business with
China, the world’s second-largest economy, as geopolitical tensions and the
Chinese Communist Party’s human rights abuses and use of advanced technology to
reinforce autocratic control make corporate dealings more fraught.

The moves reverse core tenets of post-Cold War economic and foreign policies
forged by the United States and its allies that were even adopted by rivals like
Russia and China.

“What we’re headed toward is a more divided world economically that will mirror
what is clearly a more divided world politically,” said Edward Alden, a senior
fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I don’t think economic integration
survives a period of political disintegration.”

“Does globalization and economic interdependence reduce conflict?” he added. “I
think the answer is yes, until it doesn’t.”

Opposition to globalization gained momentum with the Trump administration’s
trade policies and “America First” drive, and as the progressive left became
more powerful. But the pandemic and President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of
Ukraine have brought into sharp relief the uncertainty of the existing economic
order.

President Biden warned President Xi Jinping of China on Friday that there would
be “consequences” if Beijing gave material aid to Russia for the war in Ukraine,
an implicit threat of sanctions. China has criticized sanctions on Russia, and
Le Yucheng, the vice foreign minister, said in a speech on Saturday that
“globalization should not be weaponized.” Yet China increasingly has imposed
economic punishments — Lithuania, Norway, Australia, Japan and South Korea have
been among the targets.

The result of all the disruptions may well be a fracturing of the world into
economic blocs, as countries and companies gravitate to ideological corners with
distinct markets and pools of labor, as they did in much of the 20th century.

Mr. Biden already frames his foreign policy in ideological terms, as a mission
of unifying democracies against autocracies. Mr. Biden also says he is enacting
a foreign policy for middle-class Americans, and central to that is getting
companies to move critical supply chains and manufacturing out of China.

The goal is given urgency by the hobbling of those global links over two years
of the pandemic, which has brought about a realization among the world’s most
powerful companies that they need to focus on not just efficiency and cost, but
also resiliency. This month, lockdowns China imposed to contain Covid-19
outbreaks have once again threatened to stall global supply chains.

Image

The Chinese city of Shenzhen was shut down due to Covid concerns last week,
threatening the global supply chain.Credit...Kin Cheung/Associated Press

The economic impact of such a change is highly uncertain. The emergence of new
economic blocs could accelerate a massive reorganization in financial flows and
supply chains, potentially slowing growth, leading to some shortages and raising
prices for consumers in the short term. But the longer-term effects on global
growth, worker wages and supplies of goods are harder to assess.

The war has set in motion “deglobalization forces that could have profound and
unpredictable effects,” said Laurence Boone, the chief economist of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

For decades, executives have pushed for globalization to expand their markets
and to exploit cheap labor and lax environmental standards. China especially has
benefited from this, while Russia profits from its exports of minerals and
energy. They tap into enormous economies: The Group of 7 industrialized nations
make up more than 50 percent of the global economy, while China and Russia
together account for about 20 percent.

Trade and business ties between the United States and China are still robust,
despite steadily worsening relations. But with the new Western sanctions on
Russia, many nations that are not staunch partners of America are now more aware
of the perils of being economically tied to the United States and its allies.

If Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin organize their own economic coalition, they could bring
in other nations seeking to shield themselves from Western sanctions — a tool
that all recent U.S. presidents have used.

“Your interdependence can be weaponized against you,” said Dani Rodrik, a
professor of international political economy at Harvard Kennedy School. “That’s
a lesson that I imagine many countries are beginning to internalize.”

The Ukraine war, he added, has “probably put a nail in the coffin of
hyperglobalization.”

China and, increasingly, Russia have taken steps to wall off their societies,
including erecting strict censorship mechanisms on their internet networks,
which have cut off their citizens from foreign perspectives and some commerce.
China is on a drive to make critical industries self-sufficient, including for
technologies like semiconductors.

And China has been in talks with Saudi Arabia to pay for some oil purchases in
China’s currency, the renminbi, The Wall Street Journal reported; Russia was in
similar discussions with India. The efforts show a desire by those governments
to move away from dollar-based transactions, a foundation of American global
economic power.

For decades, prominent U.S. officials and strategists asserted that a globalized
economy was a pillar of what they call the rules-based international order, and
that trade and financial ties would prevent major powers from going to war. The
United States helped usher China into the World Trade Organization in 2001 in a
bid to bring its economic behavior — and, some officials hoped, its political
system — more in line with the West. Russia joined the organization in 2012.

But Mr. Putin’s war and China’s recent aggressive actions in Asia have
challenged those notions.

“The whole idea of the liberal international order was that economic
interdependence would prevent conflict of this kind,” said Alina Polyakova,
president of the Center for European Policy Analysis, a research group in
Washington. “If you tie yourselves to each other, which was the European model
after the Second World War, the disincentives would be so painful if you went to
war that no one in their right mind would do it. Well, we’ve seen now that has
proven to be false.”

“Putin’s actions have shown us that might have been the world we’ve been living
in, but that’s not the world he or China have been living in,” she said.

The United States and its partners have blocked Russia from much of the
international financial system by banning transactions with the Russian central
bank. They have also cut Russia off from the global bank messaging system called
SWIFT, frozen the assets of Russian leaders and oligarchs, and banned the export
from the United States and other nations of advanced technology to Russia.
Russia has answered with its own export bans on food, cars and timber.

The penalties can lead to odd decouplings: British and European sanctions on
Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch who owns the Chelsea soccer team in
Britain, prevent the club from selling tickets or merchandise.

Image

Ticket sales for Chelsea Football Club games were stopped after Britain and the
European Union imposed sanctions on the club’s owner, Roman Abramovich, a Putin
ally.Credit...Andy Rain/EPA, via Shutterstock

About 400 companies have chosen to suspend or withdraw operations from Russia,
including iconic brands of global consumerism such as Apple, Ikea and Rolex.

While many countries remain dependent on Russian energy exports, governments are
strategizing how to wean themselves. Washington and London have announced plans
to end imports of Russian oil.

The outstanding question is whether any of the U.S.-led penalties would one day
be extended to China, which is a far bigger and more integral part of the global
economy than Russia.

Even outside the Ukraine war, Mr. Biden has continued many Trump administration
policies aimed at delinking parts of the American economy from that of China and
punishing Beijing for its commercial practices.

Officials have kept the tariffs imposed by Mr. Trump, which covered about
two-thirds of Chinese imports. The Treasury Department has continued to impose
investment bans on Chinese companies with ties to the country’s military. And in
June, a law will go into effect in the United States barring many goods made in
whole or in part in the region of Xinjiang.

Despite all that, demand for Chinese-made goods has surged through the pandemic,
as Americans splurge on online purchases. The overall U.S. trade deficit soared
to record levels last year, pushed up by a widening deficit with China, and
foreign investments into China actually accelerated last year.

Some economists have called for more global integration, not less. Speaking at a
virtual conference on Monday, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World
Trade Organization, urged a move toward “re-globalization,” saying, “Deeper,
more diversified international markets remain our best bet for supply
resilience.”

But those economic ties will be further strained if U.S.-China relations worsen,
and especially if China gives substantial aid to Russia.

Besides recent warnings to China from Mr. Biden and Secretary of State Antony J.
Blinken, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has said her agency would ban the sale
of critical American technology to Chinese companies if China tried to supply
forbidden technology to Russia.

In the meantime, the uncertainty has left the U.S.-China relationship in flux.
While many major Chinese banks and private companies have suspended their
interactions with Russia to comply with sanctions, foreign asset managers appear
to have also begun moving their money out of China in recent weeks, possibly in
anticipation of sanctions.

Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International
Economics, said she did not expect China to “throw all in” with Russia, but that
the war could still strain economic ties by worsening U.S.-China relations.

“Right now, there is great uncertainty as to how the U.S. and China will respond
to the challenges posed by Russia’s increasingly urgent need for assistance,”
she said. “That policy uncertainty is another push to multinationals who were
already rethinking supply chains.”


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March 22, 2022, 4:41 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 4:41 p.m. ET

Christoph Koettl and Christiaan Triebert


SATELLITE IMAGERY SHOWS THAT RUSSIA REMOVED MILITARY AIRCRAFT FROM A KEY AIRPORT
IN UKRAINE.

Image

Credit...Planet Labs

Russia has withdrawn most of its helicopters from a strategic airport in
Kherson, in southern Ukraine, according to satellite images analyzed by The
Times, in what experts said could be a telltale sign of Russian military
setbacks in the south of the country.

The removal of the equipment from the airport, evidenced by images captured by
the space imaging company Planet Labs over six days, comes as the Ukrainian Army
is pressing to retake lost territory in the Kherson region.

Kherson, a shipbuilding center east of Odessa on the Black Sea, was the first
major city to be overwhelmed by Russian forces in the early days of the war. But
Russia has failed to overtake the region as a whole.

Control over Kherson is essential to any effort to dominate the south broadly.
The region, which lies just north of the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula,
stretches from the Black Sea coastline to the mouth of the Dnieper River.

Last week, Ukrainian forces attacked the Kherson airport, inflicting
considerable damage to Russian equipment, which was clearly visible in satellite
images and video of the aftermath. An image taken on Monday shows that
previously visible aircraft had been removed, though Russian ground troops
appear to still control the airport.

“The Ukrainian attack itself shows the vulnerability of the position, and the
Russians may have decided that it’s unwise to keep expensive aircraft parked
there,” Frederick W. Kagan, the director of the Critical Threats project at the
American Enterprise Institute, wrote in an email. He said Russian forces
appeared to have given up, at least for the moment, on taking Mykolaiv, a
strategic city located on an inlet of the Black Sea, as well as other critical
areas in southern Ukraine, like Odessa, a major economic and cultural center.

“Kherson airfield is most useful for those operations,” he added.

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Russian military helicopters were filmed being towed through a town about 25
miles southeast of Kherson’s airport.

A video posted to Twitter on March 18, and verified by The Times, shows Russian
vehicles towing helicopters away from the airport through a town about 25 miles
to the southeast.

Mason Clark, a senior analyst and Russia team leader at the Institute for the
Study of War, wrote in an email that the Russians on the whole were pulling back
manned aircraft as a result of losses sustained against Ukrainian forces. Mr.
Clark said the Russian air operations may also have been impacted by casualties
of crew and mechanical support staff and exhaustion.

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March 22, 2022, 4:23 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 4:23 p.m. ET

Stanley Reed


TOTALENERGIES SAYS IT WILL STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA BY THE END OF THE YEAR.

Image

TotalEnergies’ oil refinery near Saint-Nazaire, on the west coast of
France.Credit...Stephane Mahe/Reuters

TotalEnergies, the French oil and gas company, said on Tuesday that it would
stop buying Russian oil by the end of the year and halt further investment in
projects in the country.

At the same time, the company warned of the risks and potential negative
consequences — for itself and Europe — of a headlong flight from Russia in the
wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Paris-based company said it had “initiated the gradual suspension of its
activities in Russia, while assuring its teams’ safety.” TotalEnergies had said
on March 1 that it would halt new Russian investment.

Tuesday’s announcement expanded on that initial statement, describing how the
company would no longer enter into or renew contracts to purchase Russian oil
and petroleum products, and saying that would it would halt all such purchases
by the end of this year. TotalEnergies also said it would stop providing capital
for new projects in Russia, including a large planned liquefied natural gas
installation called Arctic LNG 2.

The energy company’s actions since the invasion illustrate the challenges for
European businesses and policymakers. Europe is dependent on energy from Russia,
which is one of the world’s largest suppliers of oil and gas.

TotalEnergies itself is in a difficult position. The company said in its
statement on Tuesday that it had been accused of “complicity in war crimes” for
continuing to work in Russia. At the same time, its Russian business, especially
liquefied natural gas investments, has been an important part of the company’s
future strategy and something it has been reluctant to completely renounce.

TotalEnergies “is far more entrenched” in Russia than rivals like BP and Shell,
which have made commitments to completely extricate themselves, said Biraj
Borkhataria, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank.

Buying energy from Russia is also an established practice that will be difficult
to abandon. TotalEnergies appears to have been one of the larger buyers of
shiploads of Russian crude in 2021, averaging 186,000 barrels a day, according
to data from Kpler, a research firm.

TotalEnergies has contracts to import Russian oil that comes by pipeline to its
Leuna refinery in eastern Germany. The company said that it would terminate
these deals by the end of 2022 and substitute supplies brought through Poland.

But the company warned that such moves could have an impact on the availability
of an ingredient for diesel fuel that is already in short supply globally.

The company said it was continuing to supply liquefied natural gas to Europe
through a facility that it owns in part called Yamal LNG, as long as governments
“consider that Russian gas is necessary.”

The company noted a dilemma that complicated efforts to liquidate its holdings.
Russian law, it said, barred it from selling its various minority interests to
non-Russian buyers.

“Abandoning these interests without consideration would enrich Russian
investors, in contradiction with the sanctions’ purpose,” TotalEnergies said.

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March 22, 2022, 4:11 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 4:11 p.m. ET

Michael D. Shear


BIDEN TO ASK ALLIES TO APPLY MORE AGGRESSIVE SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA.

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By The New York Times

0:40Biden to Press Allies for Stronger Sanctions Against Russia

President Biden will join allies at a series of global summits in Europe where
they are expected to announce new sanctions against Russia and tighten existing
ones.CreditCredit...Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Biden will press allies for even more aggressive economic
sanctions against Russia during a series of global summits in Europe this week,
White House officials said Tuesday, seeking to maintain unity of purpose as
Russian forces continue to rain destruction on cities in Ukraine.

In Brussels on Thursday, Mr. Biden and other leaders are expected to announce a
“next phase” of military assistance to Ukraine, new plans to expand and enforce
economic sanctions, and an effort to further bolster NATO defenses along the
border with Russia, said Jake Sullivan, the White House national security
adviser.

“The president is traveling to Europe to ensure we stay united, to cement our
collective resolve, to send a powerful message that we are prepared and
committed to this for as long as it takes,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters.

Mr. Biden faces a steep challenge as he works to confront the aggression of
President Vladimir V. Putin. The alliance has already pushed the limits of
economic sanctions imposed by European countries, which are dependent on Russian
energy. And the NATO alliance has largely exhausted its military options — short
of a direct confrontation with Russia that Mr. Biden has said could result in
World War III.

That leaves the president and his counterparts with a relatively short list of
announcements to deliver on Thursday following three back-to-back meetings. Mr.
Sullivan said there will be “new designations, new targets” for sanctions inside
of Russia. And he said the United States will make new announcements about
efforts to help European nations wean themselves of their dependence on Russian
energy.

But the chief goal of the summits — which have been hastily developed in just a
week’s time by diplomats in dozens of countries — may be as a further
demonstration that Mr. Putin’s invasion will not lead the allies to devolve into
sniping and disagreement.

Mr. Sullivan said that despite Russia’s intention to “divide and weaken the
West,” the allies have remained “more united, more determined, and more
purposeful than at any point in recent memory.”

The president is scheduled to depart Washington early Wednesday morning ahead of
summits on Thursday with NATO, the Group of 7 nations, and the European Council.
On Friday, Mr. Biden will head to Poland to discuss the flood of Ukrainian
refugees who have arrived since the start of the war. He will also visit with
American troops stationed in Poland as part of NATO forces.

Mr. Biden is expected to meet with President Andrzej Duda of Poland on Saturday
before returning to the White House later that day.

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March 22, 2022, 2:38 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 2:38 p.m. ET

John Ismay


RUSSIA’S COMBAT FORCE HAS SHRUNK, A PENTAGON OFFICIAL SAYS, REFLECTING
CASUALTIES AND OTHER STRUGGLES.

Image

Ukrainian forces and civilians inspecting a disabled Russian tank this month.
Russia has lost more than 10 percent of its original combat force in fighting
Ukrainian troops.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

The Pentagon has assessed that Russia’s “combat power” in Ukraine — comprising
more than 150,000 troops massed in Belarus and western Russian prior to the
invasion — has dipped below 90 percent of its original force for the first time,
reflecting the losses Russian troops have suffered at the hands of Ukrainian
soldiers.

A senior defense official, who was not authorized to discuss details of Russia’s
actions in Ukraine publicly, said Tuesday morning that Russian forces were
“struggling on many fronts,” including routine supply lines and logistics, and
that the Pentagon had seen indications that some Russian troops had been
evacuated because of frostbite.

The official declined to address estimates of Russian casualty numbers, saying,
“Even our best estimates are exactly that.” But last week, American intelligence
offered a conservative estimate that 7,000 Russian troops had been killed in the
conflict.

Pentagon officials have said that losing 10 percent of a military force,
including both those killed and injured, renders a single unit unable to carry
out combat-related tasks. Such losses also affect the morale and cohesion of a
military unit.

The defense official also said that the Pentagon had seen no indication that
Russian forces are moving toward the use of chemical or biological weapons.

On Monday, President Biden stressed the possibility that President Vladimir V.
Putin of Russia might turn to such weapons, which are banned by international
treaty. “His back is against the wall,” Mr. Biden said at a meeting of U.S.
business leaders.

The senior defense official said Russian forces continued to rely on long-range
artillery and rockets attacks on cities because Russian soldiers had not been
able to make progress on the ground in taking population centers like Kyiv.

In the past 24 hours, Russian warships in the Sea of Azov have been shelling
Mariupol for the first time, the official said, noting that indiscriminate fire
at civilian areas is a war crime.

“We have seen clear evidence that certainly over the last week or so the
Russians have deliberately and intentionally targeted” civilian infrastructure,
including hospitals and places of shelter, the official said in a briefing to
reporters. “And we also have indications of behavior on the ground by Russian
forces that would likewise constitute war crimes.”

“The administration is going to be helping provide evidence to the multiple
investigations that are going on,” the official said, “but we see clear evidence
that they’re committing war crimes through these indiscriminate and intentional
attacks on civilian targets and the people of Ukraine.”

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March 22, 2022, 2:11 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 2:11 p.m. ET

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Reporting from Washington

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, has tested positive for the
coronavirus today and will not travel with President Biden to Europe this week,
she said in a statement. She said that she “had two socially-distanced meetings
with the President yesterday,” and is “sharing the news of my positive test
today out of an abundance of transparency.” President Biden tested negative for
the coronavirus today.

Image

Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times
March 22, 2022, 2:10 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 2:10 p.m. ET

Zolan Kanno-Youngs


THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY, JEN PSAKI, TESTS POSITIVE FOR THE CORONAVIRUS.

Image

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, at the daily press briefing on
Monday. She took a test for the virus on Tuesday morning and it came back
positive.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, tested positive for the coronavirus
on Tuesday for the second time in five months, one day before she was scheduled
to join President Biden on a diplomatic trip to Europe.

Ms. Psaki took a test for the virus on Tuesday morning and it came back
positive, she said in a statement, adding that she would not join Mr. Biden and
top officials at a NATO summit where the president will press allies to use more
economic sanctions to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Ms. Psaki said that she had two meetings with Mr. Biden on Monday that were
socially distanced, and that she and the president were not considered to have
been in close contact based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. The C.D.C. defines close contact as being less than six feet away
from an infected person for a total of 15 minutes or more in a 24-hour period.

Mr. Biden tested negative for the virus on Tuesday, Ms. Psaki said in her
statement.


HOW CASES, HOSPITALIZATIONS AND DEATHS ARE TRENDING IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

This chart shows how three key metrics compare to the corresponding peak per
capita level reached nationwide last winter.

 * Cases
 * Hospitalizations
 * Deaths

Jul. 2021
Sept.
Nov.
Jan. 2022
Mar.
100%
200%
300%
400% of last winter’s peak
About this data Sources: State and local health agencies (cases, deaths); U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (hospitalizations).


“Thanks to the vaccine, I have only experienced mild symptoms,” she said. “In
alignment with White House Covid-19 protocols, I will work from home and plan to
return to work in person at the conclusion of a five-day isolation period and a
negative test.”

Ms. Psaki’s positive case comes as the White House is grappling with the toll of
an enduring two-year-old pandemic while also resuming the usual routine of the
presidency, including overseas travel.

The administration has faced a series of positive cases in recent days. Last
week, Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, tested positive.
Ms. Harris stood alongside Mr. Biden during a bill signing that same day. The
vice president tested negative on Sunday, a spokeswoman for her, Sabrina Singh,
said on Tuesday.

Mr. Biden also had to cancel face-to-face meetings with Prime Minister Micheal
Martin of Ireland last week after the prime minister received a positive result.
The president was with Mr. Martin at a gala the night before but was not in
close contact with him, according to White House officials.

Congress has seen a flurry of recent cases as well. Senator Bob Casey, Democrat
of Pennsylvania, said on Tuesday that he had tested positive.

Hillary Clinton also announced a positive test result on Tuesday, writing on
Twitter that she had “some mild cold symptoms” but was “feeling fine.” She said
former President Bill Clinton had tested negative but was quarantining.

“Movie recommendations appreciated!” she wrote.

While virus cases in the United States have been on the decline, a highly
transmissible Omicron subvariant known as BA.2 is spreading rapidly in parts of
China and Europe. The spike in cases in Europe was caused in part because
government officials relaxed precautions too quickly, a senior World Health
Organization official in the region, Dr. Hans Kluge, said on Tuesday.

Still, White House officials have said they are focused on returning the United
States to a place of prepandemic normalcy, and the White House has not reimposed
mask-wearing mandates or capacity restrictions meant to mitigate the spread of
the virus.

The C.D.C. issued guidelines last month that suggested that most Americans could
stop wearing masks, and even before that, governors across the country had moved
on their own to roll back pandemic restrictions.

The announcement of Ms. Psaki’s positive test came minutes after she was
scheduled to deliver the daily press briefing with Jake Sullivan, the national
security adviser. She and Mr. Sullivan were not considered to have been in close
contact on Tuesday, White House officials said.

Ms. Psaki did not meet with Mr. Biden on Tuesday, the officials said.

Chris Meagher, a deputy White House press secretary, filled in for Ms. Psaki at
the briefing. He said that no members of the news media were considered to have
been in close contact with Ms. Psaki during the daily press briefing on Monday.

The White House said Karine Jean-Pierre, the principal deputy press secretary,
would travel to Europe with Mr. Biden.

Ms. Psaki’s last positive test, in October, also came as the White House was
preparing for international travel. She dropped out of a trip to Europe after
learning that members of her family had contracted the virus. Her own positive
test came days later.

Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.


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March 22, 2022, 1:40 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 1:40 p.m. ET

Dan Bilefsky

Zhanna Agalakova, a journalist who resigned earlier this month from Channel One,
Russia’s state control broadcaster, said on Tuesday that she had done so to
protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “I’m doing this for Russians,” she said in
a series of tweets via Reporters Without Borders. “Our news doesn’t show the
reality.”

March 22, 2022, 10:44 a.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 10:44 a.m. ET

Megan Specia


WITH UKRAINE’S PRISONS ALSO UNDER FIRE, CONCERNS GROW FOR INMATES.

KRAKOW, Poland — At least five prisons have been attacked by Russian troops
since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of
Justice, raising concerns about the often overlooked impact of conflict on
people who are detained.

Image

Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice shared these images on Facebook, identifying them
as damaged prison institutions in the Chernihiv and Kharkiv regions.

Damage, mostly as a result of shelling, has been recorded at prisons in the
war-ravaged coastal city of Mariupol; Berdiansk, to its west; Chernihiv,
northeast of Kyiv; and Kharkiv, near Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, the
ministry said on Monday. The ministry shared photos on Facebook of what it said
were damaged prison facilities in the Chernihiv and Kharkiv regions.

The Ukrainian government has said that the prisons closest to the fighting are
in crisis, as it has been difficult to get drinking water, heat and electricity,
and telephone lines and internet connections are broken. Officials say they have
had problems delivering food and medicines to facilities across the country, and
in some areas it has been difficult to get supplies for heating.

According to the Ministry of Justice, there are 33 prisons located in active
conflict zones in the country. Exactly how many people were being held in them
was not immediately clear, but there are some 48,000 people in prisons
nationwide.

Donations of humanitarian supplies have come in from the Polish prison service,
according to the Ukrainian Penitentiary Service, which shared images of the
deliveries on Sunday.

Shortly before Russia’s invasion began last month, Vadym Pyvovarov, the
executive director of the Association of Ukrainian Human Rights Monitors on Law
Enforcement, wrote of his concerns about the need for an evacuation plan that
protected the human rights of prisoners.

At the time, he said that he and colleagues had raised the issue with local
prison authorities, but said that based on his early observations, there were
not enough protections in place.

“Most of the staff do not know what to do should emergency evacuations be
needed,” Mr. Pyvovarov wrote. “The provision of transport for prisoners remains
the responsibility of local authorities, who — as is understandable — would be
primarily concerned with the protection and evacuation of state employees and
their families, followed by the rest of the civilian population.”

At the time, he called on Ukrainian authorities to take urgent measures to
ensure the prisoners were protected.

“Like any other citizen,” he wrote, “they are entitled to the protection of the
state in times of peace like in times of a military emergency.”

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March 22, 2022, 10:10 a.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 10:10 a.m. ET

Farnaz Fassihi

António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, said that the war in
Ukraine was unwinnable and that Ukrainians were “enduring a living hell – and
the reverberations are being felt worldwide with skyrocketing food, energy and
fertilizer prices threatening to spiral into a global hunger crisis.” He said 10
million Ukrainians had been displaced from their homes. Guterres repeated his
plea for Russia to stop the war, saying there was enough on the table to
seriously negotiate.

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CreditCredit...United Nations via Reuters
March 22, 2022, 9:45 a.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 9:45 a.m. ET

Megan Specia

Reporting from Krakow

The northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv is in an increasingly dire humanitarian
situation, according to Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Lyudmila Denisova.
With damaged infrastructure, the city is struggling to maintain its water
supply, its lights are out because of electrical troubles and the gas supply is
sporadic, she said. “It is impossible to fix this due to constant shelling,” she
said.

Image

Credit...Nataliia Dubrovska/EPA, via Shutterstock

March 22, 2022, 8:47 a.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 8:47 a.m. ET

Gaia Pianigiani


SPEAKING TO ITALY’S PARLIAMENT, ZELENSKY INVOKES THE THREAT OF FAMINE AND THE
FATE OF EUROPE.

Image

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine addressed the Italian Parliament via
video conference on Tuesday.Credit...Pool photo by Roberto Monaldo

In a speech by video link greeted by two standing ovations, President Volodymyr
Zelensky of Ukraine warned Italy’s Parliament on Tuesday that the invasion of
his country could become a stepping stone for Russian forces seeking to enter
Europe, and that famine would strike in parts of the world if Ukrainian farmers
were unable to continue their work.

“Ukraine is the gate for the Russian army — they want to enter Europe,” he said.
“But barbarity should not enter.”

Mr. Zelensky warned that “famine was approaching for several countries” that
depended on Ukrainian corn, oil and wheat, including Italy’s “neighbors across
the sea,” referring to some North African nations.

“How can we sow under the strikes of Russian artillery? How can we cultivate
when our enemy destroys our fields and our fuel?” he said.

In response, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy said that the country wanted
Ukraine to join the European Union, and praised the “heroic” resistance of the
Ukrainians against the “ferociousness” of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“The arrogance of the Russian government has collided with the dignity of the
Ukrainian people,” Mr. Draghi said, “who have managed to curb Moscow’s
expansionist aims and impose a huge cost on the invading army.”

Mr. Draghi underscored the humanitarian aid that Italy sent to Ukraine since the
outbreak of the war, the hospitality offered to 60,000 refugees, mostly women
and children, and his compassion for the over 236,000 Ukrainians who have been
living and working in Italy for years.

He also said Italy would respond with military aid.

“We are ready to do more,” Mr. Draghi said. “In front of inhumanity, Italy has
no intention of looking away.”

Mr. Draghi said that Italy has frozen more than 800 million euros worth of
assets from Russian oligarchs and was working to overcome its dependency on
Russian energy supplies as fast as possible.

For his part, Mr. Zelensky did not mention Mr. Putin by name, even as he
portrayed him as the power and planner behind the war. “We need to stop only one
person so that millions can survive,” he said.

Mr. Zelensky thanked Italy for taking in children and women fleeing the war, in
private homes and hospitals.

“In Italy, the first Ukrainian baby was born from a mother who fled the war,” he
said, adding that he has visited Italy often and knows the sense of family in
Italy.

Mr. Zelensky said that 117 children have been killed in the war so far.

“And this is not the final number,” he said, describing the devastation caused
by the weekslong war.

He urged Italy to freeze Russian assets, from villas to yachts, mentioning the
Scheherazade, a mysterious, gigantic luxury yacht located in the Tuscan coastal
town of Marina di Carrara that The New York Times reported to be potentially
linked to Mr. Putin.

Mr. Zelensky also told Italian lawmakers that he had a morning conversation with
Pope Francis, and that the pontiff understood the Ukrainians’ desire for peace
and need to defend themselves.


Show more
March 22, 2022, 8:18 a.m. ETMarch 22, 2022
March 22, 2022, 8:18 a.m. ET

Emily Schmall


A HIGH-RANKING AMERICAN DIPLOMAT MEETS WITH OFFICIALS IN INDIA AS THE COUNTRY
DECLINES TO CONDEMN RUSSIA.

Image

Harsh Shringla, India’s foreign secretary, left, met with Victoria Nuland, the
under secretary of state, right, during her visit to the region, to discuss the
situation in Ukraine, on Tuesday.Credit...Narinder Nanu/Agence France-Presse —
Getty Images; T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

NEW DELHI — A top American diplomat and Russia expert met with India’s foreign
secretary on Monday, affirming the countries’ security ties as India’s
dependence on Russian arms has come into sharp relief amid the invasion of
Ukraine.

Victoria Nuland, the under secretary of state for political affairs, met India’s
foreign secretary, Harsh Shringla, as part of a U.S. delegation visit to India,
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, three countries that abstained from a United Nations
resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ms. Nuland was scheduled to
meet with India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar, on Tuesday.

Russia is India’s main arms supplier, and the two countries have deep cultural
and historic ties. Indian officials have said the country is considering
striking a deal to boost its minuscule fuel imports from Russia with discounted
supplies.

Ms. Nuland made it clear in an interview with the Indian channel NDTV that U.S.
officials were hoping India would revise its stance as a member of the Quad, a
four-country alliance that also includes Japan and Australia.

“We understand India’s historic ties with Russia, but times have changed now,”
she said. “The U.S. is a defense and security partner of India.”

A raft of high-level political meetings are taking place in New Delhi as Russia
intensifies its attacks across Ukraine. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a
summit with Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, on Saturday and a virtual
summit with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia on Monday, both of whom
have condemned Russia for its actions in Ukraine.

Mr. Modi is expected to host Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, this
weekend.

Show more





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