Significant After nearly a two-week offensive, Russian forces have continued to deploy around metropolitan areas or stepped up bombing, Ukrainian officials assured. In an interview with the American television channel ABC, the Ukrainian president assured that he would “soften” his request for NATO membership.
“We will fight to the end,” the Ukrainian president said via video link from Kyiv in front of the British Parliament on Tuesday, March 8. In an interview with the American television channel ABC, Volodymyr Zelensky also said that he no longer insists on Ukraine’s entry into NATO, which is one of the issues Moscow uses to justify the invasion. The President also said that he was ready for a “compromise” on the status of the separatist territories in eastern Ukraine, whose independence was recognized by Vladimir Putin unilaterally.
The United States also fears that Russian forces could “take control” of “biological research” structures in Ukraine and confiscate classified materials at a time when new concerns over the Chernobyl nuclear center are emerging. “Ukraine has biological research facilities, and we are now very worried about the possibility that Russian forces will try to take control of them,” Victoria Nuland, a third representative of American diplomacy, told parliamentary hearings. AEIA, the United Nations nuclear safety agency, for its part, said it had lost contact with the systems that remotely control nuclear materials at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
After a nearly two-week offensive, Russian forces have continued to deploy around metropolitan areas or stepped up bombing, Ukrainian officials assured. The Pentagon has reported a new Russian convoy advancing on Kyiv from the northeast, while the main convoy coming from the north has been standing still for several days. Between 2,000 and 4,000 Russian soldiers have died since the start of the offensive in Ukraine, according to the Pentagon. On March 2, Russia reported 497 dead in its ranks, but did not give a new estimate of its losses.
Thousands of civilians evacuated to Sumy
Thousands of civilians were able to flee the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, where Russian forces promised a new truce on Wednesday, almost two weeks after their invasion of the country that has already killed hundreds and millions of refugees. To date, more than 5,000 people have been evacuated from the city of Sumy, located 350 kilometers northeast of Kyiv, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, said on Wednesday, citing Ukrainian media.
A new truce is due to come into effect on Wednesday, allowing other civilians to be evacuated, the Russian army assured. The United States also decided on Tuesday to suspend imports of Russian oil and gas, thus taking the lead in the Western camp regarding the sanctions imposed on Moscow after the attack on Ukraine. The UK, for its part, will stop buying Russian oil and oil products by the end of the year.