President Biden said Wednesday it was clear Vladimir Putin is aimed at civilians in Ukraine and insisted that “nothing is on the table” with a ban on Russian gas imports, a drastic move that will lead to even higher energy prices.
“It is clear that they are,” Biden said when asked by a reporter if Russia was targeting civilians as he left. the White House for Wisconsin.
Ukraine estimates that 2,000 civilians have been killed so far.
However, Biden said it was too early to say whether Russia has committed war crimes. “We are watching him very closely. It is too early to say.
Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Responded on Twitter: “I don’t understand why Biden says it’s too early to say that #Putin is committing war crimes if he says #Russia uses banned weapons, deliberately kills civilians and unnecessarily destroying civilian property, then it is clear that he is committing war crimes.
“Are you considering banning Russian oil imports?” Biden was also asked. “Nothing is off the table,” he said.
Republicans have long called for Biden to start pumping more oil into America and stop buying Russian gas, and now Democrats have joined the call – Senator Ed Markie introduced legislation to ban Russian oil imports on Tuesday.
Biden is expected to announce further sanctions on both Russia and Belarus’ defense sector after Ukraine announced that Belarus had joined the fight in Putin’s country.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said on Wednesday that Russia had deployed cluster munitions and vacuum bombs in Ukraine and that the worst was yet to come.
“Clearly they are,” Biden said when asked by a reporter if Russia was targeting civilians as he left the White House for Wisconsin.
Houses destroyed as a result of shelling by the Russian army in Bucha, Kiev region
The bodies were piled up in a van after an explosion at Kyiv’s main TV tower
Police officers remove the body of a passer-by killed in yesterday’s air strike that hit Kiev’s main TV tower in Kiev on March 2
Thermobaric weapons – also known as vacuum bombs – are high-power explosives that use the atmosphere itself as part of an explosion. They are among the most powerful non-nuclear weapons ever developed.
Cluster munitions explode in the air to drop dozens or even hundreds of mini-bombs that can kill indiscriminately.
“Russia is preparing to increase the brutality of its campaign against Ukraine,” she told the UN. “We have seen videos of Russian forces moving extremely deadly weapons in Ukraine.”
Explosions erupted in residential areas of Kharkov and Kyiv on Tuesday night. On Tuesday afternoon, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it would attack Ukrainian intelligence and communication facilities in residential areas and warned civilians to flee for their own safety.
The bodies of five victims of a rocket attack on a TV tower in Kyiv were piled up in a van and taken out by police on Wednesday morning as the capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, warned that Russian forces were “approaching”.
Klitschko also defiantly promised today that we would fight to protect the city, amid fears it could soon be shattered by artillery fire from a 40-mile-long death convoy parked nearby.
Thermobaric weapons were developed by both the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s
Thermobar bomb explosion during strategic exercises Caucasus 2016 at the Opuk test site in the Southern Military District of Russia
An inaugural volley on Tuesday night hit the largest television tower in the Ukrainian capital and damaged a nearby Holocaust memorial, killing five passersby. Hours later, US intelligence said the huge Russian convoy appeared to have stopped near Kyiv, although it could simply regroup for a more determined attack.
Klitschko said fighting was still going on in the cities of Bucha and Hostomel, on the outskirts of Kyiv, where a large number of destroyed Russian vehicles were photographed on Wednesday. He called on the people of the city “not to lose resilience”, saying that all critical infrastructure is still working and humanitarian supplies are being distributed.
“I beg everyone, for security reasons, not to go out unnecessarily. On the alarm – go to the shelters, “he said. “The enemy is gathering forces closer to the capital … We are preparing and will defend Kyiv!”
As the fighting raged, the humanitarian situation deteriorated. Approximately 660,000 people have fled Ukraine, and countless others have taken refuge underground.
And as Russia shows signs of retreat in its attacks, officials said Mariupol was under “full-scale genocide” as Putin’s men unleashed 15 hours of artillery fire as Kharkiv also came under heavy bombardment in a grim sign of what could happen in the capital Kyiv.
War in Ukraine: the latest
- Russian paratroopers landed in Ukraine’s second city amid heavy fighting
- “There are practically no areas left in Kharkiv where an artillery shell has not hit yet”: Interior Ministry official
- Joe Biden called Vladimir Putin a “dictator” in his annual address on the state of the Union as he bans Russian planes from US airspace
- Biden prepares more sanctions against Russian, Belarusian military after Ukraine confirms Belarus enters battle
- Russia is stepping up its bombing and rocket attacks, hitting Kyiv’s main TV tower, two apartment buildings west of the city and Belaya Tserkov south of the capital.
- Russian forces enter the besieged Black Sea city of Kherson in the south
- Russian attacks leave Mariupol, another Black Sea port further west, without electricity
- More than 677,000 people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, the UN refugee agency said.
- The UN International Court of Justice has said it will hold public hearings on March 7th and 8th over Ukraine’s accusations of “genocide” by Russia.
- Russia blocks independent TV channel and liberal radio station, delays virtual media shutdown
- A number of Western companies have announced they are freezing or reducing their business with Russia
- The Russians are vying to withdraw cash after the introduction of capital controls and after the ruble reaches record lows
- Russia’s Nord Stream 2 is bankrupt after Germany shut down the pipeline following Moscow’s invasion
- Oil prices exceed $ 110 a barrel, despite agreements to release 60 million barrels from reserves
- World Bank prepares $ 3 billion aid package for Ukraine, including $ 350 million immediate funds
Mariupol, located in southern Ukraine on the Black Sea, is surrounded by Russian forces and hit by artillery in an apparent attempt to bomb the city to obedience, while Putin’s people resort to “medieval” tactics. Sergei Orlov, the deputy mayor, said entire areas had been leveled with such heavy shelling that medics could not enter to retrieve the dead.
“We are close to a humanitarian catastrophe,” he said. “Russian forces are a few kilometers away on all sides,” he added. “The Ukrainian army is brave and they will continue to defend the city, but Russia is not fighting with its army, they are just destroying areas … We are in a terrible situation.”
Meanwhile, Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, came under heavy shelling in the early hours as Russian troops tried to encircle and capture it after days of fighting – with a rocket hitting the university building and the police station in the early hours before the city council as well. hit, as one of the explosions was filmed in a dramatic video.
The bombing gives a grim taste to what is likely to come for other cities such as Kyiv, after analysts warned that the Russian military – after suffering heavy losses in trying to strike ambitious precision strikes – would likely resort to surrounding cities. bomb to submit to the force of bloody victory.
Ukraine’s emergency services estimate that 2,000 civilians have been killed so far during the Russian invasion, although that figure is likely to be lowered once Wednesday’s figures are calculated.
Ukraine’s armed forces said Wednesday morning that Russia was “trying to move in all directions” but “has resistance everywhere and is suffering losses”. According to him, 5,840 Russian soldiers have been killed so far – although this figure cannot be verified.