Ukraine-Russia War Live Updates: U.S. Blocks Poland’s Fighter Jet Offer As Evacuations Continue – NBC News

Workers nuclear power plant ‘exhausted’ after being held hostage for days, minister says

Workers at a nuclear power plant that was attacked and taken over by Russian forces have been left “physically and psychologically exhausted” after being held hostage for four days, Ukraine’s energy minister has said.

In a Facebook post Tuesday, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenk accused Russian forces of torturing staff at the Zaporizhzhia plant.

“There are about 500 Russian soldiers and 50 units of heavy equipment inside the station,” he said. 

Halushchenk called on Ukraine’s international partners “to take all measures to withdraw Russian occupation forces from captured nuclear objects and close the sky over Ukraine.”

The energy minister also warned that “a breakdown at a nuclear power plant due to the use of weapons by Russian troops will lead to a disaster for the whole of Europe. The responsibility for this will be entirely on Russia.”

Russians flee Putin’s crackdown as Ukraine invasion reshapes Moscow’s future

With Russia cracking down on dissent and being hit with more international sanctions than Iran and North Korea, some fear a new “Iron Curtain” may be closing as Putin leaves his country deeply isolated both culturally and economically from a scornful world.

“We were very scared,” said Aglaia, a student and activist who managed to get a rare plane ticket Thursday with her family to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, one of the few nearby places where Russian flights aren’t banned. “We just had this feeling of deep, deep sadness — but also mixed with anger.”

Read more here. 

Ukraine renews effort to free civilians as isolated Russia promises cease-fires

Ukraine launched a fresh effort to evacuate residents from battered areas across the country Wednesday, a day after thousands escaped the Russian assault through the war’s first successful safe corridor.

Russian forces have besieged Ukrainian cities but struggled to make progress in their military offensive after nearly two weeks of an increasingly devastating war. Hundreds of civilians have died and more than 2 million people have fled to neighboring countries in the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

Read more here. 

E.U. expands sanctions against Russian oligarchs and Belarusian banks

The European Union has approved new sanctions against more Russian oligarchs and their families, the E.U. Council’s French presidency announced on Wednesday.

Three Belarusian banks will be excluded from the SWIFT payment clearing system and cryptocurrencies will also be affected by the new measures, it said in a tweet.

Sanctions targeting the maritime industry were also approved by the Council’s permanent member states.

Women and children cross into Poland at the Hrebenne border on Wednesday.

As millions flee, many are entering Ukraine — some to join the resistance, officials say

As millions flee Ukraine, thousands of people are also entering the country, with many determined to join the fight against Russia’s invasion. 

On Tuesday night alone, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine said as many as 14,500 people had arrived in the country. 

Almost 12,000 of them were Ukrainians, mostly men planning to join the country’s defense. It is unclear which nationalities were represented among the outstanding 2,500 or why they had entered Ukraine.

People from around the world, including U.S. veterans, however, have vowed to join the country’s fight against Russia’s attack.  Ukraine has also put out the call for foreign fighters to join the effort, with the country establishing the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine.

Russia, Ukraine establish ceasefire on humanitarian corridors to allow evacuation

Russia has said it will temporarily stop military advances to allow evacuations, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a briefing Wednesday.

Russia has committed to observe the ceasefire from 09:00 to 21:00 local time (2 a.m. to 2 p.m. ET) along several humanitarian corridors, including Enerhodar to Zaporizhia, Sumy to Poltava and Mariupol to Zaporizhia, Vereshchuk said.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said there would be a special operation to allow children and staff members from an orphanage in the village of Vorzel to leave the area..

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday it had confirmed the humanitarian corridor routes from the Russian side, Vereshchuk said.

Ukraine accused Russian forces of violating a cease-fire agreement on Tuesday by shelling a humanitarian corridor from Zaporizhzhia to Mariupol as buses waited to collect evacuees.

Ukrainian biathlete pulls out of event after father captured by Russian forces

Ukrainian biathlete Anastasiia Laletina was forced to pull out of the middle distance sitting event at the Beijing Winter Paralympics on Tuesday after her father was captured by Russian forces, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian paralympic committee told Reuters.

Laletina’s father is a soldier in the Ukrainian army. The spokesperson said they had no further details on his capture.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month, which Moscow describes as a “special operation” to disarm the country, prompted the International Paralympic Committee to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Games

U.N. warns of risk of gender-based violence, sexual abuse as more than 2M flee Ukraine

The United Nations’ humanitarian affairs office has warned of the risk of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation and abuse as hundreds of thousands of people flee Ukraine. 

In a situation report on the humanitarian impact of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that with more than two million people forced to flee Ukraine, the situation was “generating evergrowing protection risks.” 

It said that the possibility of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation and abuse were among those risks “as the majority of people on the move are women and children.” 

UNICEF has said that of the more than two million people who have already fled Ukraine, around half are believed to be children.

“Persistent challenges in accessing basic goods and services and lack of access to safe shelter leave women and girls extremely vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and violence,” OCHA said in its situation report.

The U.N. body said that while specialized services, including gender-based violence hotlines, had been reported to remain partially functional, it said access was “extremely limited for both staff and survivors due to the ongoing hostilities and movement restrictions.” 

‘Relentless shelling’ causing major destruction across Ukraine, U.N. agency says

As fighting continues across Ukraine “relentless shelling” is causing major damage and destruction across the country, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned.

In addition to the rising number of deaths, the office said in a report Tuesday night that the “destruction of civilian objects continues to be reported.”

“According to the Government of Ukraine, relentless shelling across the country has damaged or destroyed more than 210 schools, at least 34 hospitals and more than 1,500 residential buildings, figures that continue to climb with each passing day,” its report said. 

The report said Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, has called on on all parties of the conflict to “allow the safe passage of civilians out of hardest-hit areas and safe delivery of humanitarian supplies into those areas”

Family and friends lay flowers on Ukrainian soldier’s grave

IMF considers $1.4 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine

The International Monetary Fund will consider approving $1.4 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine on Wednesday.

“We have sent to our executive board a proposal they will consider for approval tomorrow for $1.4 billion in support for Ukraine, to help it cope with the shock caused by this war,” Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Tuesday.

This aid is in addition to a separate $700 million payment agreed in December. Georgieva said the IMF had also provided a $2.7 billion Special Drawing Rights allocation — a supplement to its official reserves — that has come in “very handy” to Ukraine.

IMF said it was increasing contact with Ukraine and said talks were ongoing despite the “sirens that can be heard even as discussions go on”.

Russian forces fail to advance in Kyiv, British defense ministry says

Russian forces continued to shell major Ukrainian cities but have yet to make significant breakthroughs in the capital of Kyiv, according to the British defense ministry.

“Fighting north-west of Kyiv remains ongoing,” the ministry said in an intelligence update published Wednesday. 

The Ukrainian air defense system has also held up against Russia’s aerial forces, preventing them from achieving “any degree of control of the air,” the ministry said. 

However, the cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol remain encircled and are suffering heavy Russian shelling, it said.

Air alert declared in Kyiv

An air alert was declared Wednesday morning in and around Kyiv, with residents urged to get to bomb shelters as quickly as possible.

“Kyiv region – air alert. Threat of a missile attack. Everyone immediately to shelters,” regional administration head Oleksiy Kuleba said on Telegram.

Nearly two weeks into the invasion, Russian troops have advanced deep along Ukraine’s coastline. The city of Mariupol, which sits on the Azov Sea, has been surrounded by Russian soldiers for days and a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the encircled city of 430,000

For days, as Moscow’s forces have laid siege to Ukrainian cities, attempts to create corridors to safely evacuate civilians have stumbled amid continuing fighting.

Across the country, thousands of people are thought to have been killed, both civilians and soldiers, in nearly two weeks of fighting. Russian forces have seen their advances stopped in certain areas — including around Kyiv, the capital, — by fiercer resistance than expected from the Ukrainians.