UPDATED. US President Joe Biden's visit to Poland is his final stop on a trip to Europe that has underscored his opposition to the Russian invasion
LVIV, Ukraine – Russian forces have taken control of a town where workers at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant live, the governor of Kyiv region said on Saturday, March 26, and fighting was reported in the streets of the besieged southern port of Mariupol.
Three explosions were heard near Lviv in western Ukraine, and Reuters witnesses saw black smoke rising from the northeastern side of the city. The cause could not immediately be verified., called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “butcher.” Biden said he was not sure Russia was changing its strategy in Ukraine to focus on efforts to “liberate” the breakaway eastern Donbass region, despite getting bogged down in some areas.
Slavutych sits just outside the so-called exclusion zone around Chernobyl – which in 1986 was the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster – where Ukrainian staff have continued to work even after the plant itself was seized by Russian forces soon after the start of theIn the encircled southern city of Mariupol, Mayor Vadym Boichenko said the situation remained critical, with street fighting in the center. Mariupol has been devastated by weeks of Russian fire.
Speaking via video link, he also called on energy-producing countries to increase their output so that Russia cannot use its massive oil and gas wealth to “blackmail” other nations.Biden saw Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov in the Polish capital Warsaw in his first face-to-face meeting with top Ukrainian officials since the start of the war.“We are waiting for President Biden to close the sky over Ukraine.
Zelenskiy late on Friday pushed for further talks with Moscow after the Russian Defence Ministry said a first phase of its operation was mostly complete and that it would now focus on the Donbass region bordering Russia, which has pro-Moscow separatist enclaves. Reframing Russia’s goals may make it easier for President Vladimir Putin to claim a face-saving victory, analysts said.
Russia’s defense ministry said 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed and 3,825 wounded, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday. Ukraine says 15,000 Russian soldiers have died. Reuters could not independently verify the claims.Footage from Mariupol, home to 400,000 people before the war, showed destroyed buildings, burnt-out vehicles, and shell-shocked survivors venturing out for provisions. Residents have buried victims in makeshift graves as the ground thaws.
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