U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy have discussed specific defensive support, a new package of sanctions against Russia, and financial and humanitarian aid in an hourlong call.
Biden used the call to review sanctions and humanitarian assistance that were announced last week, while Zelenskiy updated Biden on the status of negotiations with Russia, the White House said in a statement.
Biden and Zelenskiy discussed how the United States was working “around the clock to fulfill the main security assistance requests by Ukraine,” the White House said.
They also discussed the critical effects weapon supplies have had on the conflict and continued efforts to identify additional capabilities to help Ukraine’s military defend the country.
The United States intends to give Ukraine $500 million in direct budgetary aid, Biden told Zelenskiy, according to the White House statement.
Their call came as Russian forces continued bombardments
Their call came as Russian forces continued bombardments near Kyiv and another northern Ukraine city one day after promising to scale down operations, a pledge that Western countries dismissed as a ploy to regroup.
More than a month into its unprovoked invasion, Russia told Ukraine that it would curtail operations near the capital, Kyiv, and the northern city of Chernihiv “to increase mutual trust” for peace talks after the two sides met face-to-face in Istanbul on March 29.
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But Ukrainian officials reported on March 30 that Russian shelling hit homes, stores, libraries, and other civilian sites in and around Chernihiv and on the outskirts of Kyiv.
But the governor of the Chernihiv region said on March 30 that he saw no let-up in Russian attacks overnight, while British military intelligence said that troop movements could be attributed to Russian contingents returning home or to neighboring Belarus to reorganize and resupply after suffering heavy losses on the battlefield.
“Do we believe it [Russia’s promise]? Of course not,” Governor Vyacheslav Chaus said in a video post on Telegram.
“The enemy demonstrated its ‘decreased activity’ in the Chernihiv region by carrying out strikes on [the city of] Nizhyn, including air strikes, and all night long they hit [the city of] Chernihiv,” he added.
Russian troops also stepped up their attacks around the eastern city of Izyum and the eastern Donetsk region after redeploying some units from other areas, the Ukrainian side said
Russia is likely to continue to compensate for its reduced ground maneuver capability through mass artillery and missile strikes, Britain’s Defense Ministry said.
Moscow said recently that it had fulfilled the first part of its plan in Ukraine and that its main focus would now be on southeastern Ukraine, where it is trying to capture more territory to turn over to separatists it has supported since 2014.
Zelenskiy voiced caution about Russia’s promises to scale back some operations, saying in his daily video address late on March 29 that Ukrainians “are not naive people.
“Ukrainians have already learned during these 34 days of invasion, and over the past eight years of the war in Donbass, that the only thing they can trust is a concrete result,” he said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and U.S. President Joe Biden have also expressed skepticism and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington is focused on Russia’s actions, not its words.
“What Russia is doing is the continued brutalization of Ukraine and its people, and that continues as we speak,” said Blinken, who is on a tour of the Middle East and spoke at a news conference in Morocco.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russia was only “repositioning” its forces near Kyiv not withdrawing them.
“It does not mean the threat to Kyiv is over,” Kirby said. “They can still inflict massive brutality on the country, including on Kyiv.” He said Russian air strikes against Kyiv continued.
“We’re not prepared to call this a retreat or even a withdrawal,” he said. “We think that what they probably have in mind is a repositioning to prioritize elsewhere.”
Thousands of civilians in the southern port city of Mariupol continue to be trapped under repeated shelling and air strikes by Russian forces.
Mariupol has been one of the main focal points of fighting since the start of the invasion more than a month ago. The situation in the city, which numbered some 400,000 people before the war, has been described as “apocalyptic.”
The head of the UN human rights mission in Ukraine told Reuters that thousands of civilians may have died in the city since bombing began.
“We do think that there could be thousands of deaths, of civilian casualties, in Mariupol,” Matilda Bogner said. The mission did not have a precise estimate but was working to gather more information, she added.
According to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, the total number of refugees as of midday on March 29 was 4.02 million, with just over half of that total making their way out of Ukraine and into Poland.
“Refugees from Ukraine are now 4 million, five weeks after the start of the Russian attack,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a tweet on March 30, adding that he had just arrived in Ukraine to discuss ways to increase support “to people affected and displaced by this senseless war.”
Moscow’s invasion, launched on February 24, has sparked several waves of crippling economic and financial sanctions on Russia.
The Kremlin has tried to fight back with a plan to force payments for energy exports such as gas and oil in rubles.
While the West has balked at such a move, calling it a “breach of contract,” Germany, Russia’s biggest importer of gas, declared an “early warning” on March 30 of a possible emergency if gas stopped flowing into the country.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s parliament, said on March 30 that European politicians need to “stop the talk, stop trying to find some justification about why they cannot pay in rubles.”
“If you want gas, find rubles,” he said.
Volodin has proposed expanding the ruble payment policy to the country’s other main exports – including grain, fertilizers and metals.
