Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Poland calls for armed NATO mission amid warning nuclear war is ‘steps away’
Poland is pushing for a NATO peace mission in Ukraine “protected by armed forces”, amid a warning nuclear war is “only a few steps away”. Warning: Graphic content.
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Poland on Tuesday called for a NATO peace mission “protected by armed forces” to help Ukraine.
“This cannot be an unarmed mission,” Vice Premier Jaroslaw Kaczynski was quoted as saying by the Polish news agency PAP during a visit to Kyiv.
“It must seek to provide humanitarian and peaceful aid to Ukraine.”
Mr Kaczynski, along with the Polish, Czech and Slovenian prime ministers caught a train into embattled Ukrainian capital Kyiv in a show of solidarity despite its shelling by Russian forces for much of the morning.
It is the first and highest level meeting in the country since the war began.
“I think that we need a peacekeeping mission from NATO, or even possibly from a larger international structure, but a mission that will be able to defend itself and that will operate on Ukrainian territory, which will be in this country with the agreement of the president and the government of Ukraine and it will not be a defenceless mission,” Mr Kaczynski said.
It “will strive for peace, to provide humanitarian aid, but at the same time it will be protected by appropriate forces, armed forces,” added Mr Kaczynski, who is also the leader of the ruling conservative party in Poland and is considered the main strategist of government policy.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki again called on the EU to “very quickly give Ukraine candidate status” and added: “We will try to organise defensive weapons”.
Meanwhile, the White House upped the ante by announcing President Joe Biden will visit Europe next week to shore up NATO’s unity as war rages on its eastern flank.
The move came as Ukrainian and Russian negotiators hinted a compromise toward peace was close and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “new forms of co-operation” could replace its desire to join NATO.
Russia has cited Ukraine’s potential membership to NATO as one of the factors behind its invasion as this would place the West one nation closer to its doorstep.
But a Ukrainian presidential aide, Mykhailo Podolyiak, cautioned late Tuesday that while “compromise” was possible, “fundamental contradictions” remained.
Another of the president’s top aides added to the positive vibe, or over confidence, suggesting peace by May.
“We are at a fork in the road now: there will either be a peace deal struck very quickly, within a week or two, with troop withdrawal and everything, or there will be an attempt to scrape together some, say, Syrians for a round two and, when we grind them too, an agreement by mid-April or late April,” Oleksiy Arestovich said in a video statement.
“I think that no later than in May, early May, we should have a peace agreement, maybe much earlier: we will see.”
Earlier Mr Morawiecki said on a Facebook post: “We have to halt this tragedy unfolding in the East as quickly as possible.”
Czech Republic Prime Minister Petr Fiala said the aim was “to confirm the unequivocal support of the entire European Union for the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”
They met with President Zelenskyy behind closed doors and were due to stay overnight.
Just their presence in the besieged city has flagged the success Ukrainians have had in fending off advancing Russian forces. Despite their presence, Russia again vowed its troops would encircle the city within days.
Mr Zelenskyy earlier addressed a key concern used by Vladimir Putin to justify the invasion of Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbour, by saying Ukraine should accept that it would not become a member of the NATO military alliance.
“We have heard for years that the doors were open, but we also heard that we could not join. It’s a truth and it must be recognised,” Zelenskyy, who has repeatedly pressed for Ukraine to be allowed into NATO, told military officials.
But in a virtual address to Canadian politicians, Mr Zelenskyy pleaded once again for help from NATO nations to establish a no-fly zone to prevent Russian fighters from achieving superiority in Ukraine airspace.
The appeal has so far not swayed Western nations, who fear the move could trigger a catastrophic escalation of war with nuclear-armed Russia. Mr Zelenskyy made his disappointment clear.
“How many more of those missiles have to fall on our cities until you make this happen?” he asked.
Mr Zelenskyy has another opportunity to press his case Wednesday, when he addresses the US Congress by videolink.
NUCLEAR WAR ‘STEPS AWAY’
A British air force officer has warned a nuclear war is “only a few steps away”.
“It’s no longer unthinkable,” British Air Marshal Edward Stringer told The Sun.
“And it will certainly be weighing on the minds of those who are making all the political calculations at the moment. Hence the very straight and consistent line from Biden and all the other senior heads of state recently.
“It is in the realms of possibility, and that is what people have to get their heads around.”
He told The Sun it was possible to “sketch a plausible chain of events” leading to nuclear war.
“That’s only a few steps, to get from where we are now to a confrontation that could see the use of nuclear weapons, which I think is a pretty terrifying prospect for anybody sensible.”
RUSSIANS HOLD CIVILIANS IN HOSPITAL HOSTAGE
Ukrainian civilians are being held hostage by Russian troops at a hospital in Mariupol, a Ukrainian official said.
Doctors and patients are being held in the city’s regional intensive care facility, also known as Hospital Number 2, CNN reported.
“It is impossible to get out of the hospital. They shoot hard, we sit in the basement,” an unnamed hospital employee said, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of Donetsk’s regional administration.
“Cars have not been able to drive to the hospital for two days. High-rise buildings around us are burning … the Russians have rushed 400 people from neighbouring buildings to our hospital. We can’t leave.”
Mariupol deputy mayor Sergei Orlov called the situation at the hospital “a war crime.”
“The biggest hospital in the 17th district of our cities is captured by Russian troops and the Russian army used doctors and patients as hostages in this building. We do not have any access to them,” he told CNN.
NEARLY 100 UKRAINIAN CHILDREN KILLED
Ninety-seven children have been killed since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as fighting rages on and a series of powerful blasts rocked Kyiv on Tuesday local time,
In his speech to Canada’s parliament, Mr Zelenskyy revealed the shocking statistic.
“They’ve already killed 97 Ukrainian children,” Mr Zelenskyy said in the video address, adding that Russia’s military was “destroying everything: memorial complexes, schools, hospitals, housing complexes”.
“We’re not asking for much. We’re asking for justice, for real support, which will help us to prevail, to defend (ourselves), to save lives,” he said, receiving a standing ovation from Canadian politicians.
It comes as a nine-year-old Ukrainian girl said she hoped Russian soldiers “didn’t mean to hurt her” after doctors had to amputate her arm to save her life.
Sasha, 9, and her family attempted to flee Kyiv last week when their car was targeted by Russian soldiers.
According to The Sun, Sasha’s dad died in the attack with the nine-year-old, her sister, and her mum escaping and finding shelter in a cellar.
Speaking from her hospital bed Sasha reportedly told the Daily Mail: “I don’t know why the Russians shot me. I hope it was an accident and that they didn’t mean to hurt me.
“I was shot in the arm. I ran after my sister. My mum she fell over. I thought it was the end.
“But she was not dead she was just sheltering from the gunfire. She was hiding,” Sasha reportedly told the outlet.
“Then I lost consciousness. Someone carried me to a cellar. I was given some treatment there. And then some people carried me on a towel to the hospital.”
According to the United Nations, nearly 1.4 million children have fled Ukraine since the conflict began on February 24 – nearly one child per second.
FOX NEWS CAMERAMAN, UKRAINIAN PRODUCER KILLED
An Irish cameraman for Fox News and a Ukrainian working as a producer for the US television network have been killed in fighting near Kyiv, Fox News said Tuesday.
Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and producer Oleksandra Kuvshynova died and correspondent Benjamin Hall was wounded when their vehicle was struck Monday by incoming fire in Horenka, outside the capital.
Hall, a Briton who works as the network’s State Department correspondent, remains hospitalised in Ukraine, Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said.
Zakrzewski, who was based in London, had been working in Ukraine since February.
“Pierre was a war zone photographer who covered nearly every international story for Fox News from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria during his long tenure with us,” Scott said.
“His passion and talent as a journalist were unmatched.”
Fox News said he had played a “key role” in getting the network’s Afghan freelance associates and their families out of the country after the US withdrawal.
It also said he was given an “Unsung Hero” award at the company’s annual employee Spotlight Awards in December.
Scott also paid tribute to Kuvshynova, 24, saying she had earned a reputation for being “hardworking, funny, kind and brave” while working with the Fox crew to cover the conflict.
“Her dream was to connect people around the world and tell their stories and she fulfilled that through her journalism,” Scott said, adding confirmation of her death had been delayed out of respect for her family.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said he was “deeply disturbed and saddened” by the deaths of Zakrzewski, who had Irish nationality, and his colleague.
“My thoughts are with their families, friends and fellow journalists,” Martin said on Twitter. “We condemn this indiscriminate and immoral war by Russia on Ukraine.”
EXPLOSIONS ROCK KYIV AS RUSSIA ATTACKS
Russian forces pressed in on Kyiv Tuesday with a series of strikes on residential buildings that killed four people in the Ukrainian capital, despite a fresh round of talks aimed at halting the war.
In the highest-level EU delegation to go to Kyiv since the war began, the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia travelled to the besieged capital in a sign of support for Ukraine.
But tensions were mounting, with Kyiv’s mayor announcing a 35-hour curfew to deal with what he called a “dangerous moment”, while Russia broadened its assault across Ukraine with a huge strike on an airport.
Nearly three weeks into Russia’s invasion of its pro-Western neighbour, more than three million forced to flee to neighbouring countries.
In a response to crushing Western sanctions on Russia, Moscow announced that US President Joe Biden and a dozen other top officials had been banned from entering the country, criticising “the extremely Russophobic policy pursued by the current US administration”.
It comes as a series of powerful explosions rocked residential districts of Kyiv early Tuesday local time killing two people, just hours before talks between Ukraine and Russia were set to resume.
At least three large blasts were heard from the centre of the capital, sending columns of smoke high into the sky.
As dawn broke the damage became clear, with one strike hitting a large 16-storey housing block.
There, a fire raged and smoke billowed from the charred husk of the building, as emergency services and stunned locals navigated an obstacle course of glass, metal and other debris littering the road.
“The bodies of two people were recovered, 27 people were rescued,” Ukraine’s emergency service said.
Another residential building in the Podilsk area also came under attack. Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko posted a photo of a fire crew extinguishing a smouldering fire there — the building’s facade transformed into a mess of bent and tangled window frames and precariously dangling airconditioning units.
Vasylenko said the district had been “a place to get coffee and enjoy life. Not anymore. Explosive hit just 30 minutes ago.”
Just hours earlier, Mr Zelenskyy — wearing his now-signature military-green crew neck — issued a new video address sounding a note of cautious optimism about ongoing peace talks.
He claimed Russia was beginning to realise victory would not come on the battlefield.
“They have already begun to understand that they will not achieve anything by war,” Zelenskyy said.
“Pretty good, as I was told,” he said of Monday’s first day of discussions.
“But let’s see. They will continue tomorrow.”
The two sides are still far apart in the negotiations, with Moscow demanding Ukraine turn away from the West and recognise Moscow-backed breakaway regions.
Ukrainian negotiators say they want “peace, an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops”.
Almost three weeks after vast columns of Russian forces marched across the border, Moscow’s forces have bombarded and besieged several Ukrainian towns and cities.
The capital Kyiv is surrounded to the north and east and nearly half its population of three million people have fled. Only roads to the south remain open, city authorities have set up checkpoints and residents are stockpiling food and medicine.
The United Nations estimates almost 2.8 million people have fled Ukraine and some 636 civilian deaths have been recorded, including dozens of children. The true toll is likely far higher.
PREGNANT WOMAN, BABY DIES
A pregnant woman who became a symbol of Ukraine’s suffering when she was photographed being carried from a bombed maternity hospital has died along with her baby.
The tragic news came as war from the skies raged yesterday, with no let up to the intense artillery and missile drops on numerous cities including capital Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol and Rivne in Ukraine’s west.
But it came also as Australia received a shout out for its indirect military support for the embattled country and an appeal for more kit and bullets to push Russia out.
The unnamed mother graced the covers of numerous newspapers and online sites across the world over the weekend as she stroked her bloodied belly and stared blankly in shock, as she was carried on a stretcher by emergency services from the rubble of the Mariupol hospital struck by Russian missiles.
She was taken to another hospital and was suffering a crushed pelvis and detached hip. Her unborn child was in also trouble.
Witnesses said the woman began crying out repeatedly “kill me now kill me know” to save her child as medics feared for her baby and were getting set for an emergency caesarean.
Surgeon Timur Marin delivered the baby but it was dead. They then attempted to resuscitate the mother but she died 30 minutes later.
Such was the chaos with the injured from the assault, her name was not formally recorded but medics noted the husband and father of the child came to collect the bodies, sparing them being committed to an ever growing 30m long mass grave in the port city.
Early on Tuesday morning, alarms again rang out across Ukraine including western capital Lviv.
UKRAINE THANKS AUSTRALIA
The head of the Lviv Regional Military Administration Maksym Kozytsky held a press conference on the Russian assaults now moving to the region and in that gave a special shout out to Australia for their help in the conflict including public support from its vocal Ukraine-Australian community.
Mr Kozytsky said while Australia’s contribution to the fight was smaller than those from the EU, UK or US, it was none-the-less invaluable.
“It does not matter how big or small your country or your army, it is how big your heart is and I want to mention thankyou a lot to Australia for the weapons and their thoughts for us here,” he said.
“We will fight on but of course if Australia has more (aid) we will be happy to take.”
What he said was urgently needed was ballistic vests for the “volunteer” army reservists now taking up strategic positions across Ukraine.
On his thoughts whether the war was now firmly swinging toward the west of Ukraine, Mr Kozytsky was clear.
“Who knows these things, ask Putin,” he told News Corp Australia. “He is the devil and I know he is not fighting Ukrainian army, he is fighting Ukrainian people.”
The first hint that Vladimir Putin’s war is not going to plan was revealed yesterday when one of his closest allies Viktor Zolotov conceded as much.
“I would like to say that yes, not everything is going as fast as we would like,” Mr Zolotov said in comments posted on the website of the Russian National Guard that he heads. “But we are going towards our goal step by step and victory will be for us.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday was also forced to deny media reports citing American intelligence alleging Russia had asked China for military help to advance its offensive.
“No, Russia has its own potential to continue the operation, which, as we have said, is unfolding in accordance with the plan and will be completed on time and in full,” Mr Peskov said.
China also laughed off the suggestion declaring Russia’s military was one of the most powerful in the world without its help and the report was fake news.
The alleged Russian request for China assistance heightened tensions for talks in Rome between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi from which the US is looking for limits to Beijing’s entry in the Russian war.
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Originally published as Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Poland calls for armed NATO mission amid warning nuclear war is ‘steps away’
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