WAR IN UKRAINE: May 24, 2022
Children sit on a plywood boxat an evacuation center in Zaporizhzhia after fleeing Russia's war on May 4, 2022. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin/The Kyiv Independent)
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 90
Russia is increasing the intensity of its operations in Donbas, and trying to encircle the towns of Severodonetsk, Lyschansk, and Rubizhne, the UK Ministry of Defence says
The bodies of 200 people have been found in the rubble of a high-rise building in the Russian-controlled city of Mariupol in Ukraine, an adviser to the city's mayor, Petro Andryushchenko, said on Telegram. He added that a large number of corpses are packed in a makeshift morgue in Mariupol and "the city has turned into a continuous cemetery" - BBC
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that "maximum" sanctions must be used against Russia: a full oil embargo, banks barred from global systems and trade abandoned. Indeed. My take on western sanctions has remained consistent: that there are so many holes in the sanctions packages that you can drive a lorry through them. Until we reach the point where the only places privileged Russians can vacation are North Korea or the Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea, they will not act as significant deterrents.
With a large amount of the world's grain supply piling up behind blocked port routes out, Ukraine's deputy PM, Yuliia Svyrydenko, called on world leaders to help lift the current blockade on Ukraine's Black Sea ports
While visiting Asia, President Biden said President Putin must “pay a dear price for his barbarism,” describing the destruction of schools, museums and hospitals as an effort to eliminate “the identity of Ukraine.”
CNN has obtained new exclusive satellite images of Russia’s renewed efforts to steal Ukrainian grain. The extraordinary images from Maxar show a Russian ship being loaded up in Crimea before it sets sail to parts unknown.
President Zelensky said up to a 100 people are being killed each day in Ukraine. It’s unclear if he was referring to solely civilian or military casualties. If military, that would add up to about 9,000 battlefield deaths.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Axios' Jonathan Swan today that Russian atrocities in Ukraine make it difficult for him to ever sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin to strike a deal to end the war. In the interview, Zelensky struck a middle ground between those arguing that Ukraine must fight until Russia is conclusively defeated and those pushing him to offer Putin an off-ramp.
Days after Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine, reports of the invading troops lacking decent provisions surfaced on the internet. The Kyiv Independent’s defense reporter Illia Ponomarenko and investigative reporter Igor Kossov compare Russian and Ukrainian MREs, debunking some of the earlier misconceptions about Russia’s readiness for war. Watch the video here.