KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Vladimir Putin escalated East-West tensions by ordering Russian nuclear forces to go on high alert Sunday, while the Ukrainian leader agreed to talks with Moscow as Putin’s troops and tanks sank deeper into the country, closing in on the capital.
Citing NATO’s “aggressive statements” and harsh monetary sanctions, Putin issued a directive aimed at expanding Russia’s nuclear weapons readiness, raising fears that the invasion of Ukraine could lead to nuclear war, either deliberately or by mistake.
The Russian leader “potentially reaches forces that, in the event of a miscalculation, can make things much, much more dangerous,” a senior U. S. defense official said on condition of anonymity.
Putin’s directive came as Russian forces met strong resistance from Ukrainian defenders. So far, Moscow has failed to take full control of Ukrainian airspace, despite advances across the country. USA. USA Officials say the invasion was more complicated and slower than the Kremlin imagined, though that could replace it as Moscow adjusts.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced his goal of meeting with a Russian delegation at an unspecified location on the border with Belarus.
A previous assembly had been ruled out on security grounds, but Zelenskyy said Sunday that the assembly would be held “without preconditions. “No timetable has been announced and the Kremlin has said the army’s moves will continue.
The standoff is expected to be particularly revived if Russia receives military aid from neighboring Belarus, which is expected to send troops to Ukraine today, according to a senior U. S. intelligence official. U. S. with first-hand knowledge of U. S. intelligence assessments. The official, who spoke anonymously because he was not allowed to speak publicly, said Belarus’ access to the war depended on talks between Ukraine and Russia.
In another progression today, EU foreign policy leader Josep Borrell said European countries would supply fighter jets to Ukraine, in addition to others they have already supplied.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, said of the talks: “We will be satisfied if the final outcome of the negotiations is peace and an end to the war. But we will surrender, we will capitulate, we will give up an inch of our territory. “
The immediate advances came as scattered fighting was reported in Kiev. Battles also broke out in Ukraine’s largest city, Kharkiv, and strategic ports in the south of the country were attacked by Russian forces.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog said today that the missiles hit a radioactive tea disposal site in Kiev, but there were no reports of damage to buildings or indications of a release of radioactive materials. The watchdog said it had been informed of the incident through Ukrainian authorities. However, he did not specify what aspect he is suspected of firing the missiles.
By Sunday night, Russian forces had taken Berdyansk, a Ukrainian city of 100,000 other people on the coast of the Sea of Azov, according to Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to Zelenskyy’s office. Russian troops have also approached Kherson, another city in the south. Ukraine, while Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, a prime target of Russia, “holds on,” Arestovich said.
As Russian troops approach Kiev, a city of nearly 3 million people, the capital’s mayor has expressed doubts about evacuating civilians. The government distributed weapons to those who sought to protect the city. Ukraine is also releasing prisoners with the army. have fun with whom you should fight and educate other people to make firebombs.
In Beirut, where Ukrainians were seeking to repel an attack, a medical team at a city hospital desperately tried to resuscitate a 6-year-old girl dressed in unicorn pajamas who was mortally wounded in a Russian bombing.
During the rescue attempt, a doctor in a blue medical suit, pumping oxygen to the girl, looked at the video camera of the journalist capturing the scene.
“Show that to Putin,” he said angrily. This kid’s eyes and the doctors crying. “
Her resuscitation efforts failed and the woman lay dead on a stretcher.
“UNDER NO THREAT”
Putin, in ordering the nuclear alert, cited only the statements of NATO members, but also the harsh monetary sanctions imposed by the West against Russia, adding Putin himself.
“Western countries are not only taking hostile measures against our country in the economic sphere, but senior officials of the main NATO members have made competitive statements related to our country,” Putin said.
The U. S. ambassador to the United Nations reminded the Security Council Sunday afternoon that Russia “did not threaten” and rebuked Putin for “a new escalation and an unnecessary step that threatens us all. “no change.
This is the moment in a week when Putin has reminded the world, and Washington, that he has a large arsenal and would possibly be tempted to use it. its generals act because of the West’s “aggressive comments” on Ukraine.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Putin resorted to the scheme he had used in the weeks leading up to the invasion, “which is to manufacture threats that don’t exist to justify further aggression. “
Graham T. Allison of Harvard University, whose study on the Kennedy administration’s handling of the Cuban missile crisis, “Essence of the Decision,” read many of the national security body workers surrounding Biden today, said Putin’s quote from “aggressive comments” a justification for the state of alert of one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals seemed disproportionate and puzzling, Said. “It doesn’t make sense. “
Allison, who worked on the plan to dismantle thousands of nuclear weapons that once belonged to the Soviet Union and targeted Ukraine, said the incident “raises fears that Putin may lose control of the truth. “
A huge nuclear detection device passing through the U. S. The U. S. and its allies are tracking Russian nuclear forces, and experts said they would not be surprised to see Russian bombers pulled out of their hangars and loaded with nuclear weapons, or submarines full of nuclear weapons. leave the port and go to the sea.
Russia and the United States conduct trainings that reflect other degrees of nuclear alert, so the choreography of those moves is understood on both sides. It would almost be noticeable a deviation from the same previous practice.
Land-based nuclear forces, intercontinental ballistic missiles kept in silos across any of the nations, are still in a state of readiness, the cornerstone of the strategy of “destroying mutual trust” that has impeded the nuclear industry even in times of maximum cold tension. War.
Until last week, the two nations were meeting to discuss new arms control regimes, adding a revival of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which President Donald Trump abandoned in 2019. But the U. S. The U. S. said last week it would postpone the talks.
In recent years, Russia has followed a doctrine that lowers the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons and public threats to unleash its powers in fatal atomic attacks.
“That’s what he’s doing,” Hans M said in an interview. Kristensen, director of nuclear data allocation at the Federation of American Scientists, a global policy think tank in Washington. it goes with that. This war is 4 days old and has already made nuclear threats twice. “
Russia and the United States have ground and submarine nuclear forces that are on alert and in a position to fight at all times, but bombers and other nuclear-capable aircraft are not.
If Putin arms himself or otherwise increases the nuclear readiness of his bombers, or if he orders more submarines with ballistic missiles at sea, then the United States might feel compelled to react accordingly, Kristensen said.
RESISTANCE TO UKRAINE
In Ukraine, Russia’s attempts to temporarily force the elected government to submit met with strong resistance. Russian armored cars drove a few kilometers from the center of Kharkiv, home to 1. 5 million people. reported that the city remained under Ukrainian control.
Synyehubov told citizens to “stay at home and hide all the destruction of the Russian enemy in the city. “Videos from the city, located three hundred miles east of Kiev, showed Ukrainian infantrymen firing rocket-propelled grenades from shoulder-mounted launchers near a row of abandoned Russian vehicles.
In the kharkiv center, Olena Dudnik, 86, said she and her husband were ejected from their bed by the impact of a nearby explosion.
“We’re suffering a lot,” he said by phone. We don’t have much food in the pantry, and I’m afraid the department stores may not have anything either, if they reopen. “He added: “I just need to shoot to prevent, so that other people avoid being killed. “
However, the Russian forces won some initial victories. Kupyansk, a city of 28,000 other people in northeastern Ukraine, surrendered to Russia after threats of army bombing, its mayor, Gennady Matsegora, said in a video message. The Russians said schools and hospitals would remain open, adding: “We will have to come together and resume life in general. “
The previous Sunday, Kiev was strangely calm after explosions lit up the morning sky and the government reported explosions at an airport. a pass will be considered as a Russian saboteur.
Terrified citizens occupied homes, underground garages and subway stations in anticipation of a full-scale Russian assault. Food and food are declining, Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said.
“Right now, the maximum factor is to protect our country,” Klitschko said.
Even as Russian troops slow down due to Ukrainian resistance, fuel shortages and other logistical problems, a senior U. S. defense official has been slowing down. The U. S. Department of Homeland Security said that will most likely change. “We are on the fourth day. The Russians will be informed and adapted,” the official said.
The death toll in Europe’s largest ground-based clash since World War II has remained amid the turmoil.
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said Sunday that 352 Ukrainian civilians were killed, 14 children. He said another 1,684 people, 116 children, were injured.
Despite Ukraine’s losses, Russia’s advance was held back by tactical embarrassments. Russian troops found themselves stranded on the side of roads when their cars ran out of fuel, and small regiments deployed deep in Ukraine were temporarily surrounded, captured or killed.
The Russian military declared for the first time on Sunday that it had lost troops in the fighting, and Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said an undetermined number “of our comrades were killed or wounded. “
He did not give figures on the number of dead and wounded in Russia, but said on Sunday that his country’s losses were “several times” less than ukraine’s.
Some 368,000 Ukrainians have arrived in neighboring countries since the invasion began thursday, according to the U. N. refugee agency.
Russia, which has concentrated just about 200,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders, says its attack is aimed at army targets. Ukrainian authorities accused Russian infantrymen of firing indiscriminately at ambulances, kindergartens and residential neighborhoods.
Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia had ambushed villages and massacred civilians in a crusade close to “genocide. “He said the country was collecting evidence to refer to a foreign court that could investigate war crimes.
“They’re fighting everything that’s alive,” Zelenskyy said. “They are killing our children, destroying our homes, to blow up everything that has been built for decades. “
Information for this article provided through Yuras Karmanau, Jim Heintz, Vladimir Isachenkov, Dasha Litvinova, Ellen Knickmeyer, Eric Tucker, Robert Burns, Hope Yen, Francesca Ebel, Josef Federman, Andrew Drake, Mstyslav Chernov, Nic Dumitrache and staff members of The Associated Press; Karoun Demirjian, Paulina Firozi, Amy B Wang, Hannah Knowles, Missy Ryan, Elyse Samuels, Paul Sonne, Jeff Stein, Danielle Paquette, Jennifer Hassan, Annabelle Timsit, Chico Harlan, Rick Noack, David L. Stern, Isabelle Khurshudyan, Drew Harwell, Rothroughn Dixon, Miriam Berger, Siobhán O’Grady and Sudarsan Raghavan of the Washington Post; and David E. Sanger and William J. Broad of the New York Times.
Gallery: Crisis in Ukraine