Senate is preparing to take up President Biden’s $33 billion aid package for Ukraine, including a significant increase in heavy weaponry, and the European Union is expected this week to impose an embargo on Russian oil, a significant step for a bloc whose members have long depended on Russian energy. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told reporters at a State Department briefing in Washington.Īs the war drags on and evidence of atrocities mounts, the West’s appetite has grown for retaliation that would have been rejected out of hand a few months ago. “We believe that the Kremlin may try to hold sham referenda to try to add a veneer of democratic or electoral legitimacy, and this is straight out of the Kremlin’s playbook,” Michael Carpenter, the U.S. 24 invasion by Russia-backed separatists - as soon as mid-May, and possibly the southern Kherson region as well. State Department said that Russia’s war aims now include annexing Donetsk and Luhansk - partially controlled before the Feb. On Monday, Ukraine said it had used Turkish-made drones to destroy two Russian patrol vessels off the Black Sea port of Odesa, just before Russian missiles struck the city, causing an unknown number of casualties and damage to a religious building. Smoke rising above Azovstal steel mill on Monday in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine.
