President Joe Biden on Friday expressed support for Poland's efforts in helping Ukrainian refugees during a briefing on the humanitarian crisis sparked by the month-old war in Ukraine.
►The U.N. human rights office said it has been challenging to confirm fatalities in Mariupol given the organization's strict methodology for counting the number of civilian deaths in conflict. The office says at least 1,035 civilians have been killed in Ukraine and 1,650 injured, but acknowledges that is an undercount.
►Author J.K. Rowling pushed back after Russian President Vladimir Putin dragged her into a rant against Western efforts to “cancel” Russian culture. “Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics,” the Harry Potter author said.
For days, the government in the besieged and ruined port city was unable to give a casualty count for the March 16 bombardment of the grand, columned Mariupol Drama Theater, where hundreds of people were said to be taking cover, the word “CHILDREN” printed in Russian in huge white letters on the ground outside to ward off aerial attack.
Russian combat power in Ukraine, which dipped below 90% for the first time this week, is now between 85% and 90%, the official said. For the first time, Russia appears to be drawing reinforcements from its troops based in Georgia. Combat power includes troops, tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, warplanes, warships and ballistic missiles.
Minutes after landing in Poland, Biden stopped by a barbershop where around a dozen service members sat in folding chairs awaiting haircuts and others were getting a cut. He shook hands with several soldiers and joked about their closely shorn hair. Biden, on Friday, also announced a plan where the U.S. a few like-minded partners will increase exports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Europe by 15 billion cubic meters this year. Those exports would triple in the years afterward, a necessary move if the EU can back up its claim to be rid of Russian imports in five years.
“I know that eliminating Russian gas will have a cost for Europe,” Biden said. “But it's not only the right thing to do from a moral standpoint, it's going to put us on a much stronger strategic footing.”Russian shelling in Slavutych, a town near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant where many of its workers live, threatens the ability of the staff at the plant to rotate safely, an international nuclear watchdog said Thursday.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a meeting Friday that Russia was facing a "total war declared on us" as the West seeks to "to destroy, break, annihilate, strangle the Russian economy, and Russia on the whole."In an evening address to Ukraine late Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke of hope and determination as the war headed into its second month.
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