Latest Russia-Ukraine War News: Live Updates – The Washington Post

UNDERSTANDING THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT

Russian forces have withdrawn from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and the city of Chernihiv to its north, the Pentagon said Wednesday, as Moscow concentrates its invading forces in the eastern part of the country.

“We are assessing that all of the Russians have left,” said a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under terms set by the Pentagon. The Defense Department had confirmed the full departure in the past day, this person said Wednesday afternoon, cautioning that Russian forces may have left mines that would need to be cleared.

U.S. and European intelligence officials have been tracking for days Russia’s reorientation after encountering fierce resistance — and suffering thousands of casualties — in northern Ukraine. Moscow has greater support in the east, where Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists have been locked in a grinding conflict for many years.

But while Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine’s capital region appears to be complete, with many units retreating through Belarus, the Pentagon has yet to see those personnel reenter eastern Ukraine, the senior defense official said Wednesday.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told her fellow NATO foreign ministers Wednesday that the age of engagement with Russia is over, according to a copy of her statement shared with the media by the Foreign Office.

She also declared that an agreement between NATO and Russia inked after the Cold War is dead. The NATO-Russia Founding Act states that the transatlantic alliance and Russia do not consider each other adversaries.

Her remarks came as London unveiled additional sanctions against Moscow on Wednesday, after global outrage stemming from the discovery of hundreds of bodies in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. The new measures include a ban on new British investments in Russia and a plan to end all British imports of Russian coal and oil by the end of this year.

“We will not rest until Ukraine prevails,” Truss said in a statement.

NANJING, China — Taiwan is further restricting exports of high-tech equipment to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

The Asian island, a major global supplier of crucial high-tech components, said Wednesday it is blocking the export of 57 types of technology products that can be used for both civil and military purposes, according to Taiwan’s official Central News Agency.

Technologies on the list include some telecommunications equipment, integrated circuit parts, and variable-frequency drives, which all can be used to manufacture weapons, according to the CNA.

Taiwan had announced Feb. 25 it was joining the international sanctions against Russia without providing specifics.

A crucial node in global tech supply chains, Taiwan is home to the world’s largest semiconductor production company, TSMC, which supplies many leading global electronics brands. It also hosts major electronics device manufacturers such as Foxconn, and makers of specialized tech components.

MUKACHEVO, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials called Wednesday for evacuations in three provinces near the Russian border amid new signs that President Vladimir Putin’s troops are escalating their assault on eastern and southern cities following a failed attempt to take the country’s capital.

Local officials reported renewed Russian shelling in the eastern Donetsk region, killing at least five people, and as many as 10 high-rise apartment buildings on fire in Severodonetsk, in the neighboring Luhansk district. U.S. analysts said Moscow has begun gradually shifting the focus of its military operations to the eastern border provinces after withdrawing thousands of troops that previously encircled the capital, Kyiv.

The continued violence came amid fresh reports of human-rights atrocities in Ukrainian cities and towns that had been under Russian control. Accounts of rape and summary executions of civilians by Russian occupiers prompted the United States and several allies to announce new economic sanctions, including measures targeting two of Russia’s largest banks and Putin’s adult children.

Washington has trained a small group of Ukrainians in the United States to use Switchblade “kamikaze” killer drones, a senior defense official told reporters Wednesday.

The “rudimentary” training helped Ukrainian troops handle the weapons, which aren’t organic to their military, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon. The United States has said it will supply the unmanned aerial devices to help Ukraine fight off the Russian invasion.

Fewer than a dozen Ukrainians who were already in the United States for “professional military education” have been trained, the official said. They are expected to return to Ukraine soon.

The Switchblade drones come in two versions. The Switchblade 300 can destroy lightly armored vehicles, while the Switchblade 600 can hit main battle tanks, said Collin Koh, a defense expert at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

“It’ll enhance Ukrainian defenders’ ability to hold off new Russian armored onslaught and also help deal with Russian long-range artillery,” he said.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday evening passed legislation that directs the Biden administration to submit to Congress a report on the United States’ “efforts to collect, analyze, and preserve evidence and information related to war crimes and any other atrocities” committed by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

President Biden and other world leaders have in recent days described the brutal killings in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha as a war crime. On Monday, Biden repeated his assertion that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal and called for further evidence-gathering to prepare for a war-crimes trial. “This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous, and everyone’s seen it,” Biden told reporters then.

Six members of Congress — all Republicans — voted against the measure. They include Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.).

Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) was among those who voted “no,” but she later submitted an official note saying she had intended to vote for the measure.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video released overnight Wednesday that the latest round of Western sanctions against Moscow does not go far enough, and he renewed his calls for “a complete blockade” of Russian banks and oil.

“This package has a spectacular look, but this is not enough,” Zelensky said in his nightly address.

The sanctions, issued by the United States and European countries, came in response to images of the massacre in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where hundreds were killed, some with their hands tied behind their backs, and buried in mass graves or left on streets.

But the new measures, Zelensky said, “can hardly be called commensurate with the evil that the world saw in Bucha, with the evil that continues in Mariupol, in the shelling of Kharkiv, in Russia’s attempt to launch a new global bloody offensive in Donbas.”

The White House on Wednesday announced sanctions targeting two of Russia’s biggest banks and the adult children of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The United Kingdom also announced sanctions against Russian banks and oligarchs, and the European Union appeared poised to ban imported Russian coal.

Zelensky said the U.S. move to block Russia from using money held in American banks to pay debts was a “tangible” step.

“I’m grateful for that,” he said. “But much more needs to be done to stop the war.”

He called on other leaders to provide Ukraine with more weapons and criticized those who have been reluctant to impose a complete ban on Russian energy exports, a stance he said was costing more Ukrainian lives each day.

“It is the export of oil that is one of the foundations of Russia’s aggression,” Zelensky said.

Federal prosecutors have charged a Russian oligarch who supported separatists in Ukraine with sanctions violations for trying to secretly acquire and run media outlets across Europe, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Wednesday.

At a news conference, Garland said the United States had unsealed an indictment against Konstantin Malofeyev. He said the Treasury Department had identified Malofeyev as “one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea,” a Ukrainian territory that Russia took over in 2014.

Separately, Garland said the United States had disrupted a global botnet — a network of hacked computers — that was controlled by the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU. He said the botnet had been disrupted before it could be used but said the Russian government had used similar infrastructure to attack Ukrainian targets.

The U.S. actions, Garland said, should send a message to Russia.

“It does not matter how far you sail your yacht. It does not matter how well you conceal your assets. It does not matter how cleverly you write your malware or hide your online activity. The Justice Department will use every available tool to find you, disrupt your plots, and hold you accountable,” Garland said.