‘We are not terrorists’: Zelenskyy says long-range weapons won’t be turned on Russian cities. Live Ukraine updates.
Ukraine won’t use any long-range missile systems the West might provide to strike civilian neighborhoods in Russia, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday.
Zerenskyy spoke remotely to Danish media on the eve of a meeting of global defense ministers in Brussels, Belgium, that could determine the heft and amount of weaponry supporting nations will provide Ukraine’s out-gunned but unwavering military. Ukraine cities have been pounded from a distance by long-range Russian weapons his military can’t reach.
“We are not interested in shelling civilians, we are not terrorists,” Zelenskyy said. “We need the right weapons … that work at such a distance.”
Zelenskyy said he was willing to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with or without mediators, on ending the war and withdrawing Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.
“Only President Putin decides whether the Russian army will stop or not,” Zelenskyy said. “In Russia there is one person who decides absolutely everything for the citizens of Russia and for the Russian military.”
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Latest developments
►The U.S. Open will allow tennis players from Russia and Belarus to compete in the tournament that begins Aug. 29. Players from those countries will be banned from Wimbledon, which begins June 27.
►Russia returned the remains of another 64 Ukrainians killed in the heroic last stand at the Azovstal steel plant in the weeks before Mariupol fell, authorities said Tuesday. The return comes one week after 160 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers were returned, about one-third of them from Azovstal.
►State Department officials have met with representatives of Brittney Griner’s WNBA team. Griner was detained Feb. 17 at an airport in Moscow after Russian authorities said a search of her bag revealed vape cartridges containing a cannabis derivative.
► After years of limited cutbacks in nuclear warheads among the nine nations that possess them, nuclear arsenals figure to increase over the next decade, according to findings in the 2022 yearbook released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
US to build temporary silos for shipping Ukraine grain
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the United States is working with partners to build temporary silos to get 20 million tons of grain out of Ukraine in an effort to bring down food prices. Russians are blocking millions of tons of grain from being exported from Ukraine, which has led to food shortages in Africa and Asia. Biden said temporary silos will be built on the borders of Ukraine, including in Poland. From there, Biden said the grain can then be shipped around the world.
“What Putin’s war has done is not only try to wipe out the culture of Ukrainians, decimate people, and commit numerable war crimes,’ Biden said, “but he’s also prevented the grain, thousands of tons of grain that are locked up in those silos ready to be exported.”
Separatists warn Ukraine fighters to ‘surrender or die’
The Russian Defense Ministry pledged to open a humanitarian corridor out of the embattled eastern Ukraine city of Sievierodonetsk on Wednesday for hundreds of civilians holed up at a chemical plant and urged Ukrainian fighters “to stop senseless resistance and lay down their arms.”
Eduard Basurin, spokesman for pro-Russian separatists in the region, said Ukraine fighters must “surrender or die.”
Ukraine authorities say about 500 civilians have sought refuge at the Azole plant amid Russia’s aggressive bombing campaign of the city. Russia claims hundreds of fighters are also hiding at the plant.
Mikhail Mizintsev, head of Russia’s National Defense Management Center, guaranteed the “preservation of life” in compliance with Geneva Convention rules for prisoners of war.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian and Ukrainian forces are in a fierce struggle for “literally every meter” of the city, about 80% of which is now controlled by the Russian side.
Pope Francis blasts Russian ‘ferocity and cruelty’
Pope Francis praised the courage of Ukrainians, chastised NATO and provided withering criticism for Russia’s aggression in excerpts from an interview with multiple news last month published Tuesday in Italy’s La Stampa daily. Francis blasted the “ferocity and cruelty” of Russian troops and credited Ukrainians with “heroism” and “courage” for the staunch defense of their country. Francis said NATO was not blameless, citing the military alliance’s eastern expansion.
“The Russians thought it’d be over in a week. But they miscalculated,” Francis said. “They found a courageous people, a people who are fighting to survive and have a history of fighting.”
Read their stories here.
“It is clear that this time may pass, it may settle down a little, but … it will never be the way it was. It will never be,” Priymenko told USA TODAY.
– Karina Zaiets, Janie Haseman and Katelyn Ferral