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Ukrainian officials on Wednesday accused Russia of destroying a children’s hospital in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, as efforts continue to evacuate civilians from areas worst hit by Russia’s almost two-week-old invasion.
The head of Ukraine's Donetsk region said 17 people were wounded in the attack, including staff and mothers in the maternity ward. There were no immediate reports of injured children or deaths.
In the southeastern port city of Mariupol, meanwhile, workers began burying scores of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in a mass grave after days of bombardment.
In the United States, officials warned that Russia could try to justify the invasion by launching a chemical or biological weapons attack — and blaming it on Ukraine. The warning came after a Russian official said the country was preparing to use poisonous substances in the war, a claim White House press secretary Jen Psaki called “preposterous.”
The Biden Administration also said it would not participate in a Polish offer to provide jets to Ukraine by way of a U.S. base in Germany. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the proposal would give the country “little increased capabilities at a high risk.”
Tesla to pay Ukrainian employees for up to 3 months if they are conscripted to fight
Ukrainian Tesla employees who are asked to return to defend their country will receive pay for at least three months, according to an e-mail the company sent Monday to employees in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
It wasn’t clear from the email whether this benefit would be extended to employees in North America and elsewhere.
After three months, Tesla plans to reassess Russia's war in Ukraine and their employees’ situations to decide if more needs to be done.
Read the full story here.
House OKs funding bill to provide $14B in aid to Ukraine
WASHINGTON — The House passed a massive spending bill Wednesday night to fund the federal government through September and provide nearly $14 billion in aid for Ukraine.
The $1.5 trillion bipartisan bill, which now heads to the Senate, is the culmination of months of negotiations on Capitol Hill that included a prolonged stalemate between Democrats and Republicans.
The nearly $13.6 billion devoted to Ukraine includes $6.5 billion for the Defense Department, with $3.5 billion to replenish equipment sent to Ukraine and $3 billion for U.S. troops who are helping to defend NATO in Europe. The bill would also provide money for humanitarian aid, to support Ukraine's energy grid and to combat disinformation.
Read the full story here.
Video captures Ukrainian theater group performing in bomb shelter
Video captured actors from a Kyiv theater company performing an updated version of a classic Ukrainian literary work inside a bomb shelter.
The play, Ivan Kotlyarevskiy’s “Eneida,” was performed by Ivano-Frankivsk's Drama Theater, the country’s Culture Ministry said on Instagram.
“Eneida,” published in 1798, is considered the country's first literary work published entirely in Ukrainian. The poem parodies Virgil's epic "Aeneid," about the foundation of Rome.
The version performed in the video included references to the Russian invasion.
The Culture Ministry lauded the group, saying it was “creating a strong movement of relief and resistance” by collecting aid and providing psychological support.
“They work around the clock, and even in the shelter create conditions for those for whom our troops every day defend the Ukrainian land from the aggressor,” the ministry said.
IMF approves $1.4 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine
WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund's executive board on Wednesday approved $1.4 billion in emergency financing for Ukraine to help meet urgent spending needs and mitigate the economic impact of Russia's military invasion, the IMF said.
The global lender said Ukrainian authorities had canceled an existing stand-by lending arrangement with the IMF, but would work with the fund to design an appropriate economic program focused on rehabilitation and growth when conditions permit.
"The Russian military invasion of Ukraine has been responsible for a massive humanitarian and economic crisis," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement after the meeting, predicting a deep recession in Ukraine this year.
"Financing needs are large, urgent, and could rise significantly as the war continues," she said. Once the war was over, Ukraine was likely to need additional "large support."
35,000 civilians flee cities and towns along 'humanitarian corridors,' Zelenskyy says
About 35,000 civilians were able to evacuate from some Ukrainian cities and towns Wednesday during what was supposed to be a daylong cease-fire in six areas around the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
People fled via “humanitarian corridors” from three locations — Sumy, Enerhodar and several towns in the Kyiv region. Zelenskyy said he “prayed” that civilians in three other cities authorities had sought to evacuate — Mariupol, Izyum and Volnovaha — would be rescued Thursday.
The efforts were scuttled after Ukrainian officials said Russian forces were continuing to shell the escape routes or block them with buses.
In Mariupol, where people have been without water and electricity for days in frigid temperatures, 17 people were injured when a maternity ward at a children’s hospital was destroyed in a Russian airstrike, Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy claimed the strike and other similar attacks in other cities were evidence of a “Ukrainian genocide” carried out by Russian forces.
“Europeans: You won't be able to say that you did not see what was happening to Ukrainians, what was happening in Mariupol,” he said. “You saw it. You know it. You need to continue to impose sanctions on Russia so that they would not be able to continue this genocide, so that they would sit at the negotiation table and stop this atrocious war.”
'I forgot when I ate last,' evacuee says while fleeing Irpin
IRPIN, Ukraine — Hundreds of Ukrainians living in towns occupied by Russian troops on the outskirts of Kyiv fled Wednesday.
Streams of cars — some fixed with white flags — filed down the road, joined by lines of yellow buses marked with red crosses.
The Interior Ministry said about 700 people were evacuated from Vorzel and Irpin. People from three other Kyiv suburbs were unable to leave. Some who managed to get out said they hadn’t eaten in days.
“I forgot when I ate last,” said an Irpin resident who gave only her first name, Olena. “I’m so scared. I need to keep walking.”
Iuliia Bushinska, a Vorzel resident, said: “Occupiers came to our house and they were ready to shoot us.”
“They took away our house, our car, they took away our documents. So we need to start our life from the beginning. We survived things that I never experienced in my life,” Bushinska said.
Why did the U.S. reject Poland's plan to give Ukraine its Soviet-era fighter jets?
Ukraine wants warplanes. Its allies have plenty. But getting fighter jets to Ukraine is much more complicated than it might seem.
On Wednesday, the Biden administration rejected a proposal from Poland that would have made its old Russian-made MiG fighters available to a U.S. base in Germany for potential handover to Ukraine, because it would be a “high risk” step that could ratchet up tensions with Russia, the Defense Department said.
The difficulties are legal, logistical and political. Top leaders of NATO — the alliance of 30 countries that includes the U.S. and Germany — want to help Ukraine but have resisted actions that could drag it directly into Moscow’s war against its neighbor.
Officials so far have deemed Ukraine's appeals for additional fighter jets, as well as requests to impose a no-fly zone, as moves that would risk direct conflict with Russia.
Read the full story here.
U.S. gas prices hit another record
WASHINGTON — U.S. gasoline prices hit another record on Wednesday, with the national average rising to $4.25 a gallon, an overnight increase of eight cents, according to AAA.
Motorists in California continue to pay the highest prices, with the statewide average at $5.57 a gallon. Prices topped $4.50 in Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Alaska and Hawaii.
Gasoline prices have been rising for nearly two years, following the trend in oil prices. Production fell at the outset of the pandemic, and producers have not pumped enough oil since then to meet rising demand.
The national average for gas has spiked 60 cents in just the past week, which analysts say is almost entirely due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which led President Joe Biden to announce Tuesday that the U.S. will ban the import of Russian oil.
