KYIV, March 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A trio of eastern European leaders met Ukraine’s president in his besieged capital Tuesday, in a defiant act of solidarity as Russian forces pressed in and air strikes claimed yet more lives in the city under curfew.
As talks ground on between Moscow and Kyiv in a bid to halt the devastation, the White House upped the ante by announcing President Joe Biden will visit Europe next week to shore up NATO’s unity as war rages on its eastern flank.
Biden will use a trip to an emergency NATO summit next week to demonstrate Washington’s “iron-clad” backing for its allies, the White House said, also attending an EU summit in Brussels to discuss the invasion.
NATO worries that Russia is gearing up to carry out a chemical attack in Ukraine, secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said, citing “absurd claims” that Ukraine possesses biological weapons labs and warning that Russia would pay
“a high price” if it did so.
The nearly three-week-old conflict has revived Cold War-level tensions between Moscow and the West and sent more than three million Ukrainians fleeing across the border to seek refuge in neighboring states.
Mixed messages have emerged from the latest round of negotiations, with both Moscow and Kyiv signalling progress, but a Ukrainian presidential aide, Mykhailo Podolyiak, cautioning late Tuesday that while “compromise” was
possible, “fundamental contradictions” remained.
On the ground in southern Ukraine the presidency reported a humanitarian breakthrough of sorts, with some 20,000 residents evacuating from the besieged port city of Mariupol where there is a critical lack of food, water and medicine.
But Russia extended its military onslaught elsewhere, including a huge strike on an airport in the country’s east, while four people were killed in strikes on homes in the capital.
As a 35-hour curfew came into force in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky hosted the Polish, Czech and Slovenian prime ministers in the first visit by foreign leaders to the besieged city since Russia’s invasion.
“We have to halt this tragedy unfolding in the East as quickly as possible,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a Facebook post announcing his arrival, along with Czech premier Petr Fiala and Slovenia’s Janez Jansa.
The bold visit by European leaders — acting as representatives of the European Union — came as Moscow faced a new wave of sanctions including higher UK tariffs on Russian vodka and steel, and EU bans on the exports to
Russia of champagne and high-end cars.
In a response to the barrage of Western sanctions, Moscow announced that Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and top officials from both countries had been hit with measures ensuring “reciprocity”.
And Russia retreated one step further from the West by announcing it was abandoning the Council of Europe after pressure mounted for it to be expelled from the pan-European rights body.
According to the United Nations, nearly 1.4 million children have fled Ukraine since the conflict began on February 24 — almost one child per second. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has reported 1,834 civilian casualties.
Surrounded by Russian troops to the north and east, Ukraine’s capital has been transformed into a war zone, with apartment blocks badly damaged by bombardment and half of its 3.5 million people now gone. — NNN-AGENCIES
