What’s happening in Ukraine today and how are countries around the world responding? Read live updates on Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
WASHINGTON – U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday approved US$800 million in new military assistance to Ukraine, including artillery and helicopters, to bolster its defences against an intensified Russian offensive in the country’s East.
Biden announced the aid after a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to coordinate the delivery of the assistance, which he said included artillery systems, artillery rounds, and armored personnel carriers, as well as helicopters.
“This new package of assistance will contain many of the highly effective weapons systems we have already provided and new capabilities tailored to the wider assault we expect Russia to launch in eastern Ukraine,” Biden said in a statement.
Biden said the U.S. will continue to work with allies to share additional weapons and resources as the conflict continues.
“The steady supply of weapons the United States and its Allies and partners have provided to Ukraine has been critical in sustaining its fight against the Russian invasion,” Biden said. “It has helped ensure that Putin failed in his initial war aims to conquer and control Ukraine. We cannot rest now.”
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UNITED NATIONS – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says there is no chance at the moment for a humanitarian cease-fire in Ukraine, as the United Nations was seeking.
But he told reporters Wednesday that the UN has made a number of proposals to Russia on the possibility of local cease-fires, humanitarian corridors, and the evacuation of civilians, “and we are waiting for an answer.”
Guterres sent UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths to Moscow and Kyiv as his special envoy to seek a humanitarian cease-fire, but he said, “at the present moment, a global cease-fire in Ukraine doesn’t seem possible.”
He said the UN proposals to Russia are aimed at minimizing “the dramatic impact” of Russia’s war against Ukraine on civilians and include creating “a mechanism” involving Russia, Ukraine, the United Nations and eventually other humanitarian bodies to permanently manage local cease-fires, humanitarian access and evacuations to avoid incidents and failures.
As for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reported comment Tuesday that negotiations with Ukraine are at a “dead end,” Guterres said, “I will remind you that we are in an Easter period and the Easter period is about resurrection.”
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KYIV, Ukraine – A Ukrainian official has rejected Russia’s claims that more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops have surrendered in the besieged southeastern port of Mariupol. Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj.-Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Wednesday that 1,026 troops from the Ukrainian 36th Marine Brigade surrendered at a metals plant in the city.
But Vadym Denysenko, advisor to Ukraine’s Interior Minister, denied the claim in comments to the Current Time TV channel, saying that they haven’t heard anything like that and the battle over the sea port is ongoing.
“According to official data of (Ukraine’s) Defence Ministry and the General Staff, we haven’t heard anything like that,” Denysenko said. “Moreover, I will say … that the battle over the sea port is still ongoing today.”
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PARIS — French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen warned Wednesday against sending any more weapons to Ukraine, and called for a rapprochement between NATO and Russia once Moscow’s war in Ukraine winds down.
Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist who has long ties to Russia and has supported Vladimir Putin in the past, also confirmed that if she unseats President Emmanuel Macron in France’s April 24 presidential runoff, she will pull France out of NATO’s military command and dial back French support for the whole European Union.
Macron, a pro-EU centrist, is facing a harder-than-expected fight to stay in power, in part because the economic impact of the war is hitting poor households the hardest. France’s European partners are worried that a possible Le Pen presidency could undermine Western unity as the U.S. and Europe seek to support Ukraine and end Russia’s ruinous war on its neighbor.
Asked about military aid to Ukraine, Le Pen said she would continue defence and intelligence support.
"(But) I’m more reserved about direct arms deliveries. Why? Because … the line is thin between aid and becoming a co-belligerent," the far-right leader said, citing concerns about an "escalation of this conflict that could bring a whole number of countries into a military commitment."
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has urged China to use its "special relationship with Russia" to persuade Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank, on Wednesday, Yellen said Beijing "cannot expect the global community to respect its appeals to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity in the future if it does not respect these principles now."
Yellen’s speech comes a week before the Internaxjmtzywtional Monetary Fund-World Bank Group Spring Meetings in Washington. Her direct appeal to China underscores an increasing frustration that the United States and its allies have with a country that has only deepened its ties with Russia since the invasion of Ukraine.
"The world’s attitude towards China and its willingness to embrace further economic integration may well be affected by China’s reaction to our call for resolute action on Russia," she said.
Yellen said that countries that undermine the sanctions the U.S. and its allies have imposed on Russia will face consequences for their actions. Leaving open the question of what the consequences for flouting the sanctions could be, Yellen said Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine has "redrawn the contours" of the global economy, which includes "our conception of international cooperation going forward."
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HELSINKI — European Union nations Finland and Sweden reached important stages Wednesday on their way to possible NATO membership as the Finnish government issued a security report to lawmakers and Sweden’s ruling party initiated a review of security policy options.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 triggered a surge in support for joining NATO in the two traditionally militarily non-aligned Nordic countries, with polls showing a majority of respondents willing to join the alliance in Finland and supporters of NATO in Sweden clearly outnumbering those against the idea.
Finland, a country of 5.5 million, shares the EU’s longest border with Russia, a 1,340-kilometre (833-mile) frontier. Sweden has no border with Russia.
Russia, for its part, has warned Sweden and Finland against joining NATO, with officials saying it would not contribute to stability in Europe. Officials said Russia would respond to such a move with retaliatory measures that would cause "military and political consequences" for Helsinki and Stockholm. One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reasons for invading Ukraine was that the country refused to promise that it would not join NATO.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, speaking Wednesday in Stockholm in a joint news conference with her Swedish counterpart Magdalena Andersson, said Finland is ready to make a decision on NATO "within weeks" rather than months following an extensive debate in the 200-seat Eduskunta legislature.
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GENEVA – The head of the World Health Organization slammed the global community Wednesday for its almost singular focus on the war in Ukraine, arguing that crises elsewhere, including his home country of Ethiopia, don’t receive equal consideration, possibly because those suffering aren’t white.
In a press briefing, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he didn’t know “if the world really gives equal attention to black and white lives,” given that the ongoing emergencies in Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria have garnered only a “fraction” of the global concern for Ukraine.
Tedros said the siege of the Tigray region of Ethiopia by Eritrean and Ethiopian forces was one of the longest in modern history and noted that a recent truce had still not allowed in significant amounts of humanitarian aid. Tedros acknowledged that the situation in Ukraine was globally significant, but questioned if other crises were being accorded enough attention.
“I need to be blunt and honest that the world is not treating the human race the same way,” he said. “Some are more equal than others.”
Tedros noted that there are about 6,000 people living in Tigray with HIV, but authorities have lost track of where they are and that “many of them, we assume they have already died.” Tedros described the situation in Tigray as “tragic” and said he “hopes the world comes back to its senses and treats all human life equally.” He also critiqued the press for its failure to document the ongoing atrocities in Ethiopia, noting that people had been burned alive in the region.
“I don’t even know if that was taken seriously by the media,” he said.
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GENEVA – Switzerland is joining a raft of new sanctions targeting people and companies in Russia over President Vladimir Putin’s military campaign in Ukraine, including his two adult daughters.
The Federal Council on Wednesday adopted new measures against Russia and Belarus, a key ally of Moscow, that mirror similar measures adopted last week by the European Union. Switzerland, which has long prided itself on its neutrality, is not among the EU’s 27 member states.
Switzerland had already lined up with previous EU sanctions. The fifth and latest package of measures focuses on finance, transport, and trade – notably bans on imports of coal, wood, cement, seafood, and vodka that “serve as important sources of revenue for Russia,” the government said.
An extra 200 people or entities were also sanctioned including Russian oligarchs and their families, as well as Putin’s adult daughters Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova.
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MILAN – Italian energy company ENI said it has a deal to import up to 3 billion cubic meters of liquid natural gas from Egypt this year as Europe seeks to wean itself from Russian natural gas over its invasion of Ukraine.
ENI signed the deal Wednesday with EGAS (Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company), just days after Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi secured a deal to increase gas imports from Algeria to help replace the 29 billion cubic meters Italy imports annually from Russia.
The Algeria deal will add up to 9 billion cubic meters of gas by 2023-24 to the 21 billion cubic meters it already receives, with the increased flows starting in the fall. Russia is Italy’s top supplier of natural gas, which is used to generate electricity, heat and cool homes and power industry.
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LONDON — The Channel Island of Jersey says it is freezing assets connected to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich estimated to be worth over US$7 billion.
The Law Offices Department of Jersey, a tax haven long known for drawing large amounts of foreign direct investment, said Wednesday that the assets being targeted were either located in Jersey, or owned by Jersey-incorporated entities.
It said that police also executed a search warrant Tuesday at addresses suspected to be connected to Abramovich’s business activities. It didn’t provide details.
Abramovich, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been sanctioned by the U.K. government and the European Union. The 55-year-old tycoon has assumed an unofficial role in the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia aimed at ending the war.
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KYIV, Ukraine — The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia traveled by train to Kyiv on Wednesday to meet Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The presidents of the four NATO countries on Russia’s doorstep planned to deliver "a strong message of political support and military assistance," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said.
Nauseda, Estonian President Alar Karis, Poland’s Andrzej Duda and Egils Levits of Latvia also planned to discuss investigations into alleged Russian war crimes, including the massacre of civilians. Nauseda said the leaders had visited Borodyanka, one of the towns near Kyiv where evidence of atrocities has been found.
"This is where the dark side of humankind has shown its face," he wrote on Twitter. "Brutal war crimes committed by the Russian army will not stay unpunished."
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PRAGUE — The Czech Republic has reopened its embassy in the Ukrainian capital that was closed after Russian troops invaded the country.
The Foreign Ministry said the diplomats have returned to Kyiv and the Czech flag is flying again at the embassy.
It said Wednesday’s move is "one of the steps to show our support for Ukraine."
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BERLIN — Experts commissioned by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe say they found "clear patterns" of violations of international humanitarian law by Russian forces in Ukraine.
OSCE member countries authorized a study in early March, and the three professors chosen to conduct it — Wolfgang Benedek, Veronika Bilkova and Marco Sassoli — were selected by Ukraine.
Their report, issued Wednesday, said that if the Russian forces had respected their obligations "in terms of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack and concerning specially protected objects such as hospitals, the number of civilians killed or injured would have remained much lower."
The experts found "some violations and problems" in Ukrainian practices, voicing concern about the treatment of prisoners of war.
The report said Russia responded by saying it considered the mechanism under which the experts were appointed "largely outdated and redundant" and declined to appoint a liaison person, referring them to official government statements and briefings.
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LONDON — Britain has announced a new round of sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, targeting 178 individuals who have helped prop up Kremlin-backed breakaway regions in the eastern part of the country.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Wednesday that the sanctions were coordinated with the European Union. The move comes after rocket attacks that targeted civilians in eastern Ukraine.
Those sanctioned include Alexander Ananchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, and Sergey Kozlov, the chair of government in the Luhansk People’s Republic. Also targeted are Pavel Ezubov, cousin of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, and Nigina Zairova, executive assistant to Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman.
Truss says Britain is sanctioning "those who prop up the illegal breakaway regions and are complicit in atrocities against the Ukrainian people. We will continue to target all those who aid and abet Putin’s war."
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BERLIN — The German government is defending the country’s president after a diplomatic snub by Ukraine.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the largely ceremonial head of state, said Tuesday that his presence apparently "wasn’t wanted in Kyiv." He said his Polish counterpart had suggested that they both travel to Ukraine along with the presidents of the three Baltic countries.
German newspaper Bild quoted an unidentified Ukrainian diplomat as saying that Steinmeier is not welcome in Kyiv at the moment because he had close relations with Russia in the past. Steinmeier was previously Germany’s foreign minister and recently admitted mistakes in policy toward Russia.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Wednesday she regrets that Steinmeier was unable to visit.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany said Chancellor Olaf Scholz would be welcome, but some German lawmakers said the snub to Steinmeier would complicate that.
Government spokesman Wolfgang Buechner defended Steinmeier, saying that he "has clearly taken a stand on Ukraine’s side."
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Sweden said Wednesday that the Scandinavian country’s customs will donate 8,000 respiratory protection, 263 chemical and gas protection suits and 88 protective suits to Ukrainian colleagues as well as vests and helmets.
The Swedish government said that Swedish Customs has asked for consent to send the equipment to Ukraine.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Latvia says it will train Ukrainian troops to handle drones.
"At the moment, we must do everything we can to promote Ukraine’s victory and to defend its principles of self-determination and sovereignty," Defence Minister Artis Pabriks said.
He added that two Latvian companies had delivered unmanned aerial vehicles.
Latvia already has provided, among other supplies, Stinger anti-air systems to Ukraine but also weapons, personal equipment, dry food supplies, ammunition, anti-tank weapons, worth more than (euro) 200 million, the defence minister said.
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NICOSIA, Cyprus — Cyprus’ government spokesman says the country is moving to revoke citizenship for four Russians and 17 of their family members, who are included among those sanctioned by the European Union after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Marios Pelekanos confirmed to The Associated Press on Wednesday that procedures are underway to strip citizenship from 21 persons. Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades had said earlier that the government had authorized the Interior Ministry to begin revocation procedures for the four Russians, who have not been named.
The four received Cypriot passports under the country’s once lucrative citizenship-by-investment program that was scrapped in 2020.
The program’s end came in the wake of an undercover TV report that allegedly showed the parliamentary speaker and a powerful lawmaker claiming that they could skirt rules to issue a passport to a fictitious Chinese investor who had supposedly been convicted of fraud at home.
A 2021 report found that more than half of a total 6,779 passports were issued unlawfully to relatives of wealthy investors over the program’s 13-year run that generated over 8 billion euros.
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PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron has steered clear of calling Russia’s actions in Ukraine genocide.
Asked on France-2 television Wednesday about U.S. President Joe Biden’s use of the term, Macron said:
"I would say that Russia has unleashed an excessively brutal war in a unilateral way. It has been established that war crimes have been committed by the Russian army," Macron said. "We must find those responsible and bring them to justice."
"I am prudent with terms today….Genocide has a meaning. The Ukrainian people and Russian people are brotherly people. It’s madness what’s happening today. It’s unbelievable brutality and a return to war in Europe," the French president said.
"But at the same time I look at the facts, and I want to continue to try the utmost to be able to stop the war and restore peace. I’m not sure if the escalation of words serves our cause."
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BUCHAREST, Romania —- Visiting a Black Sea air base in Romania, Belgian’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine and said that "Europe has changed forever."
De Croo was joined by Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca on Wednesday at the southeast Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, where NATO troops are positioned.
The Belgian leader said that "armed aggression and war crimes were unleashed upon innocent people, innocent people of Ukraine." The aggression, he said, was "aimed at denying the fact the the population has a right to choose freedom."
He called Russia’s actions "a turning point for Europe — for it is a brutal attack on the core values of Europe," he said.
President Iohannis said that NATO will continue its "robust response."
"The fact that we are together in this military base is further proof of the unity, cohesion and solidarity that exists at NATO level," Iohannis said. He told the troops they are the "concrete expression of our determination to further strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defence posture in the Black Sea region."
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NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase has written down US$1.5 billion of assets when the bank reported its quarterly results, most of it tied to the bank’s exposure to Russian and Ukrainian assets.
The write offs on Wednesday partially drove JPMorgan to report a noticeable decline in profits in the first quarter, and to miss Wall Street estimates.
JPMorgan is the first of Wall Street’s big giant banks to report its results. Analysts expect the big banks to have to write off billions of assets that are tied to Russia .
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WARSAW, Poland — A top aide to Poland’s President Andrzej Duda says Duda and the presidents of the three Baltic nations have arrived in Ukraine, ahead of talks about material aid for country invaded by Russia.
Pawel Szrot, chief of Duda’s staff, said Wednesday that Duda, "together with the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, is currently on the territory of Ukraine. They are traveling to Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy."
For security reasons he gave no details.
Duda brings "symbolic support, with political support and for talks on material support," Szrot said, adding that all four countries are "extending support to Ukraine that is of humanitarian nature and not necessarily of humanitarian nature. "
These countries, all of which border Russia or its exclave of Kaliningrad, have been providing Ukraine with weapons that they call "defensive."
In a twitter post, Estonian President Alar Karis said: "We are visiting Ukraine to show strong support to the Ukrainian people, will meet dear friend President Zelenskyy."
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Russia says more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops have surrendered in the besieged southeastern port of Mariupol.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj.-Gen. Igor Konashenkov said 1,026 troops from the Ukrainian 36th Marine Brigade surrendered at a metals plant in the city.
Russian forces moved on Mariupol in late February and units in the city have been running low on supplies.
Konashenkov said that the 1,026 Ukrainian marines included 162 officers and 47 female personnel, and that 151 wounded received medical treatment.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych did not comment on the alleged mass surrender, but said in a post on Twitter that elements of the 36th Marine Brigade had managed to link up with other Ukrainian forces in the city as a result of a "risky manoeuvre."
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ROME — Pope Francis says his contention shortly after he became pontiff in 2013 that a third world war "in pieces" was afflicting the globe is ever more actual. Francis writes in an essay published on Wednesday in Italian daily Corriere della Sera that he would never a thought a year ago, while on a pilgrimage in Iraq, that war would be raging in Europe.
Francis wrote that the many wars being fought throughout the world seem far away until "almost unexpectedly, war explodes near us. Ukraine was attacked and invaded."
The pope also lamented that people’s memories are short. "Yes, because if we had a memory, we would recall what our grandparents and our parents recounted to us, and we would feel the need for peace like our lungs need oxygen."
Francis called war "a cancer that feeds itself by engulfing everything." He decried that women, children and older adults are "forced to live in the belly of the earth to escape bombs."
Francis said that the way to rip out "hate from the heart" is through "dialogue, negotiations, listening, diplomatic ability and creativity, long-ranged policies capable of constructing a new system of co-existence that isn’t any longer based on weapons, on deterrence."
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WASHINGTON — The United States and its allies are pushing ahead with sanctions aimed at forcing Vladimir Putin to spend Russia’s money propping up its economy rather than sustaining its "war machine" for the fight in Ukraine, a top Treasury Department official said Tuesday.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, one of the main U.S. coordinators on the Russian sanctions strategy, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the goal is to make Russia "less able to project power in the future."
On the same day that inflation notched its steepest increase in decades, Adeyemo said reducing supply chain backlogs and managing the pandemic are key to bringing down soaring prices that he related to the ongoing land war in Ukraine, which has contributed to rising energy costs.
Adeyemo discussed the next steps the U.S. and its allies will take to inflict financial pain on Russia — and the complications the war has on rising costs to Americans back home.
Adeyemo said the U.S. and its allies will next target the supply chains that contribute to the construction of Russia’s war machine, which includes "everything from looking at ways to go after the military devices that have been built to use not only in Ukraine, but to project power elsewhere."
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KYIV, Ukraine — More than 720 people have been killed in Bucha and other Kyiv suburbs that were occupied by Russian troops and more than 200 are considered missing, the Interior Ministry said early Wednesday.
In Bucha alone, Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said 403 bodies had been found and the toll could rise as minesweepers comb the area.
Ukraine’s prosecutor-general’s office said Tuesday it was also looking into events in the Brovary district, which lies to the northeast.
Authorities said the bodies of six civilians were found with gunshot wounds in a basement in the village of Shevchenkove and Russian forces are believed to be responsible.
Vladimir Putin vowed Tuesday that Russia’s bloody offensive in Ukraine would continue until its goals are fulfilled and insisted the campaign was going as planned, despite a major withdrawal in the face of stiff Ukrainian opposition and significant losses.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials say fugitive Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, who is both the former leader of a pro-Russian opposition party and a close associate of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, has been detained in a special operation carried out by the country’s SBU secret service.
In his nightly video address to the nation Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed that Russia could win Medvedchuk’s freedom by trading Ukrainians now held in Russian prisons.
Ivan Bakanov, the head of Ukraine’s national security agency, said on the agency’s Telegram channel that Medvedchuk had been detained.
The statement came shortly after Zelenskyy posted on social media a photo of Medvedchuk sitting in handcuffs and wearing a camouflage uniform with a Ukrainian flag patch.
Medvedchuk was the former leader of the pro-Russian party Opposition Platform – For Life. He was being held under house arrest before the war began and disappeared shortly after hostilities broke out.
Putin is the godfather to Medvedchuk’s youngest daughter.
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A destroyed self-propelled artillery unit is seen on a road near Kharkiv, Ukraine, April 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
