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President Joe Biden welcomed the leaders of Finland and Sweden to the White House on Thursday after the two countries officially submitted their applications to join NATO.
The Nordic neighbors' bids to join the Western military alliance face an early challenge from Turkey, which has expressed objections.
But Russia's war in Ukraine has already reshaped European security and threatened consequences far beyond, with the United Nations warning of a potential global food crisis — an issue aggravated by Russia's now full control over the key port city of Mariupol.
Here's what to know today:
- The U.S. has reopened its embassy in Kyiv three months after it shuttered its doors and relocated staff members ahead of Russia's invasion.
- The Red Cross says it registered hundreds of POWs from Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant.
- The head of the U.N. World Food Program has warned that failing to reopen Ukraine's ports would amount to "a declaration of war on global food security."
- The first war crimes trial since the conflict began is resuming in Kyiv after a Russian soldier pleaded guilty.
Senate signs off on $40 billion Ukraine aid package
WASHINGTON — After a weeklong delay, the Senate voted Thursday to pass a $40 billion military, economic and humanitarian aid package for Ukraine as its bloody war with Russia neared the three-month mark.
The vote was 86-11, with Republicans casting all of the no votes. The Senate also voted to confirm Bridget Brink as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine on Wednesday night, shortly after the State Department announced it was reopening its embassy in Kyiv.
Biden hails Sweden, Finland NATO applications
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has hailed the “momentous” applications of once-neutral Sweden and Finland to join NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden greeted Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden and President Sauli Niinistö of Finland at the White House on Thursday as they met for trilateral conversations about the NATO mutual defense pact and other European security concerns.
The Biden administration has professed optimism for the applications, which mark a significant embarrassment to Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
Biden said both countries “meet every NATO requirement and then some.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that the alliance stop expanding toward Russia’s borders.
Captive medic’s bodycam shows firsthand horror of Mariupol
KHARKIV, Ukraine — A celebrated Ukrainian medic recorded her time in Mariupol on a data card no bigger than a thumbnail, smuggled out to the world in a tampon. Now, she is in Russian hands, and Mariupol itself is on the verge of falling.
Yuliia Paievska, who as medic went by Taira, used a body camera to record 256 gigabytes of video on her team’s frantic efforts over two weeks to bring people back from the brink of death. She got the harrowing clips to an Associated Press team, the last international journalists in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, as they left in a rare humanitarian convoy.
Russian soldiers captured Taira and her driver the next day, March 16, in one of the many forced disappearances in areas of Ukraine now held by Russia. Russia has portrayed Taira as working for the nationalist Azov Battalion, in line with Moscow’s narrative that it is trying to “denazify” Ukraine. But the AP found no such evidence, and friends and colleagues said she had no links to Azov.
The military hospital where she led evacuations of the wounded is not affiliated with Azov. And the video she recorded shows her trying to save wounded Russian soldiers along with Ukrainian civilians.
A March 10 clip shows two Russian soldiers being taken roughly out of an ambulance by a Ukrainian soldier. One is in a wheelchair. The other is on his knees, hands bound behind his back, with an obvious leg injury.
A Ukrainian soldier curses at one of them. “Calm down. Calm down,” Taira tells him.
A woman asks her, “Are you going to treat the Russians?”
“They will not be as kind to us,” she replies. “But I couldn’t do otherwise. They are prisoners of war.”
Taira, 53, is now a prisoner of the Russians, like hundreds of local officials, journalists and other prominent Ukrainians who have been kidnapped or captured. The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has recorded 204 cases of enforced disappearances, saying that some victims may have been tortured and that five were later found dead.
Exhumations outside Kharkiv
Russian soldier on trial on war crimes charges apologizes to victim’s wife, says he was ordered to shoot
A Russian soldier on trial on war crimes charges in Kyiv spoke in court Thursday, calling his actions "unacceptable" and saying he was pressured by a higher-up to shoot an unarmed civilian.
Sgt. Vadim Shyshimarin, 21, has pleaded guilty to killing the civilian in the first war crimes trial since the conflict began. He told the court from his glass booth Thursday that he was aware that, when he crossed into Ukraine with his unit, he was invading another country, but he said he was not familiar with international acts about customs of war.
He apologized to the victim’s wife, who also spoke in court. "I understand that you will not be able to forgive me," he said.
She told the court the Russian soldier deserved life imprisonment for killing her husband but said she wouldn't mind if he was exchanged for one of the Ukrainian troops who surrendered at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol this week.
Biden meets leaders of Sweden, Finland in Washington
Kremlin says Ukrainians have a say on future in occupied territories
The Kremlin says it will be up to residents of areas in Ukraine controlled by Russian troops to determine their future status.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that people living in such places must “determine how and with whom they want to live.”
Peskov made the statement on a conference call with reporters after he was asked about some Russian officials who said Russia could move to incorporate the captured Kherson region of southern Ukraine.
Peskov responded that authorities need to focus on providing basic services to the residents of areas under Russian control.
Dancing with Putin: Has Europe finally had enough of politicians making big money from Russia?
A former German leader and a former Austrian foreign minister face censure over their continued ties to the Kremlin.
The European Parliament passed a package of measures Thursday that urges the European Union to sanction politicians who still receive huge sums of money from Russian businesses.
While the motion is nonbinding, its adoption is an important step in the sanctions that are being introduced, and it sends a clear signal that the European community will no longer tolerate tacit support for President Vladimir Putin’s regime that has characterized much of the continent’s approach to the Kremlin for decades.
