Russian airstrike ravages children’s hospital; White House warns Russia may use chemical weapons: Live Ukraine updates
Russian airstrike devastated a maternity and children’s hospital complex in the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, burying women and children under debris and injuring more than a dozen, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.
The Mariupol City Council posted video on social media of the battered buildings.
“The destruction is enormous,” the council said in a statement. “The building of the medical institution where the children were treated recently was completely destroyed. Information about the affected children is being clarified.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said people were trapped in the wreckage after the strike. He once again urged the West to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror?” Zelenskyy said in a Twitter post. “Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity.”
Latest developments:
►The price of gas across much of Europe has risen above 2 euros per liter — the equivalent of about $8.33 per gallon. Filling up a compact car can cost $100.
►Congressional leaders reached a bipartisan deal early Wednesday to provide $13.6 billion to help Ukraine and European allies amid Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
►Most U.S. and Asian stock markets rebounded Wednesday following Wall Street’s decline and President Joe Biden’s ban on imports of Russian crude.
►China says it is sending humanitarian aid including food and daily necessities worth 5 million yuan ($791,000) to Ukraine while continuing to oppose sanctions against Russia over its invasion.
►Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said dozens of children have been killed in the war: “The scariest figure was the 50 Ukrainian children killed in 13 days of war. But then in an hour it became 52 children. I will never forgive this. And I know that you will never forgive the occupiers.”
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VISUALS:Mapping and tracking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
PUTIN’S BRAND OF MANHOOD:The psychology of Putin and the dangers of ‘militarized masculinity’
US House passes massive spending bill with Ukraine aid
The U.S. House of Representatives passed $13.6 billion in aid money to Ukraine Wednesday night as part of a larger spending bill.
The money to Ukraine included $6.5 billion to cover the cost of sending U.S. troops and weapons and equipping allied forces in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. $6.8 billion in aid was marked for refugees and giving help to allies. Other funds went to help U.S. federal agencies enforce sanctions against Russia and protect against cyber threats.
The amount surpassed the $10 billion President Joe Biden requested from Congress, but the spending package still has to pass the Senate.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had to concede another $15.6 billion that was supposed to go toward combating the COVID pandemic in order to rush the aid through for Ukraine. Both Democrats and Republicans will achieve wins in the $1.5 trillion package if it goes through the Senate.
White House warns Russia may use chemical weapons in Ukraine
The White House issued a troubling warning Wednesday evening that Russia might attempt to use chemical weapons in its siege of Ukraine.
The warning came from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki after an array of claims made by the Kremlin to justify its invasion of Ukraine, including the long debunked assertion that the U.S. was creating chemical and biological weapons in the country. Without evidence, China similarly echoed the claim.
Psaki, in a Twitter thread, responded in detail to the claims and warned it was part of a “pattern” by Russia to accuse the West “of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating.”
“Now that Russia has made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them,” Psaki said.
Russia’s accusations echo the country’s disinformation tactics used in Syria after chemical weapons were used to kill more than 1,400, including children, according to Andrew Weber, a former Pentagon official who spent decades working for the U.S. government to counter such weapons and helped in the effort to destroy Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles.
Weber, in an interview with Mother Jones, said it was possible that Putin might use nuclear weapons in the conflict. But more possible, Weber said, would be that Putin “would use chemical or biological weapons.”
The U.S. State Department similarly said the allegations were part of a propaganda effort by the Kremlin by “inventing false pretexts in an attempt to justify its own horrific actions,” spokesman Ned Price said, adding the U.S. does not develop or possess such weapons anywhere.
False claim of US biolabs in Ukraine tied to Russian disinformation campaign
– Christal Hayes
VP Kamala Harris in Poland after US rejects fighter jet plan for Ukraine
Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to staunch ally Poland is now a clean-up mission. A day after the United States declined Poland’s surprise proposal to provide Soviet-built MiG-29 fighter jets to the U.S. to give to Ukraine, Harris will meet with the country’s top leaders in Warsaw, where she will need to try to smooth over the controversy.
Harris arrived in Warsaw Wednesday, hours after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Polish leaders that the United States does not support the transfer of additional fighter aircraft to the Ukrainian Air Force, according to Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby.
Harris will meet with Ukrainians who have fled to Poland and talk to service members in the U.S. and Polish militaries. She will also confer with allies on what more can be done to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
-Maureen Groppe, Josh Meyer and Rebecca Morin
bolstered defenses in key cities where Russian troops have laid siege, trapping civilians inside with little or no food, water or medicine.
In the southern city of Mariupol, the artillery attack that devastated a hospital complex was just the latest tragedy. Days of shelling have largely cut residents of off from the outside world and forced them to scavenge for food and water.
key to curbing the Russian invasion of Ukraine and potentially building a post-Putin Russia.
“Part of why I think it’s so important to go after the Russian oligarchs and the rest of the elite is that suddenly a bunch of oligarchs had to get on private jets, flee Monaco and the south of France and other places they have their homes and head back to Moscow,” said Max Bergmann, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. Read more here.
– Matthew Brown
What to know about nuclear disaster
Read more here.
– Associated Press
the war in Ukraine could impact American cyber networks as the war enters its third week and Russian President Vladimir Putin grows more isolated.
The nation’s main federal cybersecurity agency told USA TODAY on Tuesday it has been encouraging U.S. organizations to up their security.
“While there are not any specific, credible, cyber threats to the U.S., we encourage all organizations – regardless of size – to take steps now to improve their cybersecurity and safeguard their critical assets,” the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency said in a statement.
The Biden administration sought $10 billion last week in emergency funding from Congress in defense aid, including to support Ukraine’s cyber defenses, as well as $28 million to bolster the FBI’s “investigative and operational response to cyber threats stemming from the Russia threat and war on Ukraine,” according to the supplemental funding request.
– Tami Abdollah
Kremlin-controlled parliament and signed by Putin on March 4 that criminalizing the intentional spread of information that goes against the government’s narrative, were certain words like “war” and “invasion” can land someone in prison for up to 15 years.
Experts told USA TODAY that Russia has been clamping down on free speech and independent press for years – even decades – without such momentous reaction. The country has even passed a number of similar laws in the past.
This time, the implications could be much more dangerous. Read more here.
– Celina Tebor
Contributing: The Associated Press