Speaking to thousands in the gardens of Warsaw’s Royal Castle, Joe Biden praised the resilience of the Ukrainian people and the goodwill of Poland and other Western allies in repelling the Russian invasion.
The US President said the attack on Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. and said that new sanctions against Russia will be announced this week.
G7 foreign ministers have said their countries will continue to impose economic costs on Russia and urged the broader international community to reject what they called Moscow’s “brutal expansionism.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin made a lengthy televised address in front of the common houses of the Russian Parliament. In it, he accused the West of starting the war in Ukraine and promised a new fund to help those who lost loved ones in what he called Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Putin also announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). The State Department later said Moscow intended to continue to comply with the treaty’s limitations on the number of warheads it could have deployed.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg regrets Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the New Start bilateral nuclear arms control treaty and urged Moscow to reconsider.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Ukrainian forces would maintain their positions on the front line in the east after Russia reported that it was advancing on its main objective in the region. Russia, which is trying to gain full control of two eastern provinces that make up Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region, has launched repeated attacks and has secured its biggest gains around the mining town of Bakhmut.
Investigations by Denmark, Germany and Sweden into explosions at the Nord Stream gas pipelines are still ongoing, the three countries said Tuesday as the UN Security Council met to discuss the September incident. Russia, which called the meeting, wants the 15-member council to ask for an independent investigation into the explosions on the pipelines between Russia and Germany that have spewed gas into the Baltic Sea and exacerbated a European energy shortage.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Italy would “not waver” in its support for Ukraine. after meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kiev on Tuesday.
At least six people have died in Russian attacks in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and 12 others injured.
Ukraine on Tuesday told schools to hold distance learning from February 22-24 because of the threat of Russian missile attacks around the first anniversary of the Moscow invasion in 2022.
Eighteen Russian MPs are expected at a meeting of the Safety and Security Organization Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna on Friday, Anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and were invited to a nationalist ball.