Recent war events in Ukraine:
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The US Department of Defense says it will provide another $300 million in military equipment to Ukrainian forces fighting Russian troops.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement Friday that equipment in the new package includes laser-guided missile systems, drones, armored vehicles, night vision goggles and munitions. Also included are medical supplies, campaign gear and spare parts.
Kirby said the new package marks the beginning of a process to equip Ukraine with new capabilities, rather than handing over equipment from US military stockpiles.
The United States has provided more than $1.6 billion in aid to Ukraine’s security forces since the Russian invasion began, Kirby noted.
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GENEVA – A team trying to help people exit the besieged city of Mariupol has not reached the port city, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday.
The team hopes to try again on Saturday, the Red Cross added in a statement.
“The terms and conditions make it impossible” for the three-vehicle convoy to reach Mariupol safely and then return to Zaporizhia, he said.
“In order to conduct the operation successfully, it is important that the parties respect the agreements and provide the necessary conditions and security guarantees,” the agency said.
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LEOPOLIS, Ukraine – Authorities in Mariupol on Friday warned that it was impossible to enter the besieged Ukrainian city and that it was dangerous for people to try to exit alone.
“We don’t see any real desire on the part of the Russians … to offer Mariupol residents the opportunity to evacuate to the Ukrainian-controlled area,” Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the city’s mayor, said on Friday.
“Since yesterday, the occupiers have categorically not allowed humanitarian cargo, even in small quantities, into the city,” added Andryushchenko via the messaging app Telegram.
Russian officials on Friday allowed 42 buses carrying Mariupol residents to leave the neighboring occupied city of Berdyansk, which Mariupol residents were able to reach on their own.
A convoy of around 2,000 refugees, escorted by the Red Cross, was on its way to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhia on Friday.
Mariupol City Council said on Friday that the actions in Ukraine, and particularly in its shelled city, amounted to genocide.
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LEOPOLIS, Ukraine – Russia and Ukraine resume talks via video conference.
The Russian delegation, led by Vladimir Medinsky, released a picture of the ongoing dialogue on Friday. The Office of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed to The Associated Press that contacts have been resumed.
The talks take place three days after the last meeting of the two delegations in Turkey.
“Our positions on Crimea and Donbass have not changed,” Medinsky said.
Russia annexed the southern Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Donbass is the majority Russian-speaking industrial region where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
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BRUSSELS – The European Commission is proposing that the 27 countries of the European Union allow the millions of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine to exchange their Ukrainian hryvnia banknotes for the currency of host countries.
The proposal aims to promote coordinated action within the region.
“This action was necessary given that the National Bank of Ukraine had to suspend the exchange of hryvnia into foreign currency to protect the country’s limited foreign exchange reserves,” he told the commission. The institutions The credit unions of the EU countries did not want to carry out the swap due to the limited convertibility of the hryvnia and its exchange rate risk.
According to the EU, more than 3.8 million of the four million people who have fled Ukraine are on EU territory.
The commission proposed a limit of 10,000 hryvnia (306 euros) per person, without commissions and at the official exchange rate published by the National Bank of Ukraine.
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BERLIN – The head of the United Nations nuclear regulator says he will lead a team to the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant “as soon as possible”.
Rafael Mariano Grossi wrote on Twitter that the International Atomic Energy Agency’s post-Chernobyl “assistance and assistance” mission “will be the first in a series of such nuclear safety missions in Ukraine.”
Grossi’s comments came after he visited Ukraine and traveled to Russia this week. He did not give any further details about his plans or a more precise timetable. He will give a press conference later on Friday in Vienna.
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MOSCOW – The Kremlin says reports of Ukrainian attack helicopters attacking an oil depot on Russian territory and causing a fire are not conducive to Moscow-Kyiv talks.
Asked whether the alleged incident could be seen as an escalation of the conflict, Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “This is certainly not something that can be seen as comfortable conditions for talks to continue.”
Russia and Ukraine are expected to resume contacts via video conference on Friday.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region accused Ukraine of using helicopter gunships to cross the border and attack an oil depot on Friday morning. If confirmed, it would be the first such attack since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
The information could not be verified immediately.
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BEIJING — China has accused the United States of instigating the war in Ukraine and says NATO should have been dissolved after the fall of the Soviet Union.
“As the culprit and main perpetrator of the Ukraine crisis, the United States has led NATO to participate in five rounds of eastward expansion in the last two decades after 1999,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in a statement on his daily Press Conference Friday.
“The number of NATO members has increased from 16 to 30 and has moved more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to the east, close to the Russian border, gradually pushing Russia against the wall,” he added .
Though Beijing says it takes no sides in the conflict, has declared a “no limits” partnership with Moscow, has refused to condemn the invasion, has opposed sanctions against Russia, and often reinforces Russian disinformation about the conflict, including the fact that they don’t refer to it as invasion or war like the Kremlin does.
Zhao’s comments come as leaders of China and the European Union hold a virtual summit whose agenda is expected to be dominated by Ukraine. EU officials are calling for China’s pledge not to undermine sanctions and to help efforts to contain the fighting.
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GENEVA – The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is not certain whether the planned delivery of aid to Mariupol and the evacuation of civilians from the besieged Ukrainian city will go ahead on Friday.
At a United Nations meeting in Geneva on Friday, Ewan Watson, a spokesman for the humanitarian group, said three vehicles had been sent to Mariupol and the front line between Ukrainian and Russian forces, but two other trucks carrying supplies into the city not you were part of the convoy.
The dozens of buses organized by Ukrainian authorities to evacuate civilians have also not approached the dividing line, he added.
Watson noted that it was an “extremely complex” operation, adding that “there aren’t all the details that guarantee this will happen today”.
The hope, he added, is to move “thousands” of people out of the city to other parts of the country less affected by the fighting that has been going on since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The European Union police agency has teams in countries bordering Ukraine to protect refugees from criminals.
Europol forces are working with local authorities by conducting secondary security checks and trying to identify “criminals and terrorists attempting to enter the EU within the refugee flow and taking advantage of the situation,” the Europol-based agency said on Friday. Holland.
Europol teams operate in Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Moldova and plan to deploy to Romania as well.
The agency said it also collects information for use in assessing criminal threats across Europe.
According to the United Nations, more than four million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on February 24.