Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine heads into its second month as fighting rages and Western allies unleashed another set of crippling sanctions on Moscow while promising more military support and aid to Kyiv.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked NATO and the European Union for working together to support Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia, but lamented that these steps weren’t taken earlier, saying there was a chance Russia would have had second thoughts about invading.
The leaders of the 30 NATO countries, the Group of Seven, and the 27 European Union countries announced the sanctions and additional aid as they held unprecedented back-to-back summits in Brussels on March 24.
On March 25, U.S. President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a deal under which the bloc will receive at least 15 billion cubic meters of U.S. liquefied natural gas this year in an effort to wean itself off Russian gas imports.
The deal is the first step taken by a newly formed transatlantic task force to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian fossil fuels following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden, who announced a $1 billion aid package for Ukraine the previous day, was scheduled to travel on March 25 to Warsaw for talks with Polish leaders on energy and refugee issues.
Biden will also travel to Rzeszow, a town near the Polish-Ukrainian border, bringing the U.S. president less than 80 kilometers from Ukraine.
The fighting has driven almost 4 million civilians out of the country and left tens of thousands stranded in cities without utilities and dwindling food supplies.
In the besieged southern port of Mariupol, which lies between Russian-occupied Crimea and eastern areas held by Moscow-backed separatists, thousands are in basements with scant water, food, medicine, or power.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on March 25 that a humanitarian corridor had been agreed with Russia to allow civilians to leave the city by private cars after several previous attempts failed.
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Vereshchuk said those who manage to make their way out of the city will be able to take buses from the nearby city of Berdyansk to the city of Zaporizhzhya.
“We will do everything in our power so that buses filled with Mariupol residents reach Zaporizhzhya today,” she said, adding an agreement to evacuate civilians from the city of Melitopol had also been reached.
Mariupol, which had a population of 400,000 before the war, has been reduced to rubble, with thousands of civilians dead and tens of thousands still seeking a route out of the city to safety.
Previous agreements on humanitarian corridors have failed, with each side blaming the other for making them impassible.
Mariupol city officials said on March 25 that according to witness accounts, some 300 people may have died in last week’s Russian strike on a theater where hundreds were sheltering.
On the front line, Ukrainian forces claimed to be pushing Russian troops back in some areas around Kyiv and said they were successful in attacking a Russian naval transport vessel docked in the Sea of Azov near Mariupol.
Britain’s Defense Ministry on March 25 confirmed that Ukraine had reoccupied towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometers east of Kyiv, helped by Russian forces falling back on overextended supply lines.
The ministry added that Ukrainian forces were “likely to continue to attempt to push Russian forces back” toward Hostomel Airfield, northwest of Kyiv.
The ministry said that “logistic issues and Ukrainian resistance” were also slowing down Russian attempts to circumvent the southern city of Mykolaiv as they attempted to push towards the key port city of Odesa.
Russian forces fired two missiles late on March 24 at a Ukrainian military unit on the outskirts of Dnipro, the country’s fourth-largest city, regional emergency services said.
The strikes destroyed buildings and set off two fires, while the number of those killed and wounded was still being established.
Regional Governor Valentyn Reznychenko said on social media the strikes caused “serious destruction.”
Dnipro is west of the regions along the Russian border that have been controlled by the separatists since 2014.
In a nighttime address, Zelenskiy sought to convey a message of hope and determination to Ukrainians.
“With every day of our defense, we are getting closer to the peace that we need so much. We are getting closer to victory,” he said. “We can’t stop even for a minute. For every minute determines our fate, our future, whether we will live.
“We need to look for peace,” Zelenskiy said. “Russia also needs to look for peace.”
Earlier, in separate messages to the European Union and NATO, Zelenskiy thanked EU leaders for imposing sanctions on Russia, including Germany’s decision to block Russia from delivering natural gas to Europe through the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
But he lamented that these steps were “a little too late” to stop Russia’s invasion, by not putting sanctions on Moscow and blocking the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline earlier.
Zelenskiy then appealed to EU leaders to move quickly on Ukraine’s application to join the bloc. “Here I ask you, do not delay. Please,” Zelenskiy said by video from Kyiv. “For us, this is a chance.”
He appealed to Germany and particularly to Hungary not to block Ukraine’s bid.
“Listen, Viktor, do you know what is happening in Mariupol?” Zelenskiy said, addressing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “I want to be open, once and for all — you should decide for yourself, who you are for.” Orban is widely regarded to be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally among EU leaders.
Earlier on March 24, Western allies imposed new sanctions against Russia and promised to send more military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine at an unprecedented series of summits in Brussels aimed at emphasizing a unified response to Russia’s military aggression.
In his message to NATO, Zelenskiy said the West should provide “all the weapons we need” to “prevent the deaths of Ukrainians from Russian strikes, from Russian occupation.”
Zelenskiy did not reiterate calls for the alliance to impose a no-fly zone above Ukraine or to grant his country membership in the alliance but thanked NATO for the defensive equipment provided so far.
After Zelenskiy said there was a “real” chance that Putin could resort to chemical warfare, Biden pledged that NATO would respond but provided no details except that the response “would depend on the nature of the use.”
Biden said Putin miscalculated the strength of Western resolve before launching his unprovoked invasion, which he said had built greater unity within NATO, the European Union, and the G7.
“NATO has never, never been more united than it is today. Putin is getting exactly the opposite of what he intended to have as a consequence of going into Ukraine,” Biden said after a meeting with NATO leaders.
Biden announced that the United States would provide an additional $1 billion in food, medicine, water, and other supplies to Ukraine and accept up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees.
As the summits got under way, the United States expanded its sanctions to include dozens of Russian defense companies, 328 members of the Russian State Duma, and the head of Russia’s largest financial institution, Sberbank.
Britain also announced that it was adding 59 Russian individuals and entities to its sanctions list, effectively freezing their assets and restricting the people on the list from entering the country. Companies now on the list include Gazprombank, Alfa Bank, and the state-run shipping firm Sovcomflot.
In addition, NATO announced that four new battlegroups will be set up in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria.
In another condemnation of Russias actions by the international community, the UN General Assembly on March 24 overwhelmingly demanded aid access and civilian protection in Ukraine and criticized Russia for creating a “dire” humanitarian situation.
A resolution calling for the access and an end to the war received 140 votes in favor and five against — from Russia, Syria, North Korean, Eritrea, and Belarus — and 38 abstentions.
