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What Happened on Day 106 of the War in Ukraine

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LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine — Just to move about town, Ukrainian soldiers accelerate to breakneck speeds in their SUVs, screech around corners, zip into courtyards, then pile out and run for cover.

“They see us and they open fire,” Colonel Yuriy Vashchuk said of the need to move quickly or become a vulnerable target for Russian artillery. “There’s no place in this town that is safe.”

He was careering around on the high ground of Lysychansk, across the river from Sievierodonetsk, the site of the fiercest fighting in Ukraine’s East. To be prepared, he placed a hand grenade in the cup holder between the front seats of his vehicle. A box of pistol ammunition slid back and forth on the dashboard as he drove.

Signs of Ukraine’s tenuous military positions are everywhere: On the hills overlooking Sievierodonetsk, smoke from a dozen or so fires testify to weeks of seesaw urban combat. The single supply route to the west is littered with burned vehicles, hit by Russian artillery.

The clanging, metallic explosions of incoming shells ring out every few minutes.

These two cities, separated by the Seversky Donets River, have become the focal point of the battle in the East, though weeks of bombardment have driven away most civilians, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine recently referred to them as “dead cities.’’

Ukrainian regional police patrolled in the city of Lysychansk, on the high banks across from Sievierodonetsk.
Smoke filled the sky over the the city of Sievierodonetsk, where intense street fighting is taking place between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

Russia’s goal is clear: It aims to capture the cities, even if that means flattening them, and continue its march westward.

Yet Ukraine’s strategy there remains unclear. Analysts say Sievierodonetsk, with its empty streets and hollowed-out buildings, is of limited military significance, and in recent days, Mr. Zelensky has spoken both of the merits of pulling back and the longer-term risks of doing so.

On Wednesday night, he swung back toward emphasizing its importance, framing the fighting here as pivotal to the broader battle for the region. “In many ways, the fate of our Donbas is being decided there,” he said in his nightly speech to the nation.

“We defend our positions, inflict significant losses on the enemy,” Mr. Zelensky said. “This is a very fierce battle, very difficult. Probably one of the most difficult throughout this war.”

Still, the government’s mixed signals emerged again on Thursday when Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukraine’s defense minister, made a desperate plea for more powerful weapons. “We have proved that, unlike many others, we do not fear the Kremlin,’’ he said. “But as a country we cannot afford to be losing our best sons and daughters.”

He warned that as many as 100 Ukrainian soldiers were being killed every day.

Indeed, the fighting on the plains in eastern Ukraine has become a race between Russia’s tactic of making slow, methodical advances that gain ground even as they reduce towns to rubble and kill untold numbers, and the delivery — far too slow, Ukrainians say — of powerful Western weapons needed to halt the invaders.

The Ukrainian military and government are now making no secret of the challenges they face in the East, three and a half months after Russia invaded. Their daily updates that highlight real setbacks are atypically honest by the standards of military press offices, a tactic perhaps intended to add a sense of urgency to their daily calls for heavy Western weaponry

Members of the Ukrainian regional police force patrolled in the city of Lysychansk.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
A destroyed building in the city of Lysychansk.

Russia has also been moving swiftly to punish Ukrainian soldiers captured on the battlefield.

On Thursday, two Britons and a Moroccan who fought for the Ukrainian military were sentenced to death by a court in a Russian-occupied region of eastern Ukraine, after they were accused of being mercenaries, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.

The death sentences for the men — Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, of Britain and Brahim Saadoun of Morocco — alarmed human rights advocates and raised questions about the protections for thousands of foreign-born fighters serving in Ukraine, some of whom have been taken prisoner.

In Russia, investigators said on Thursday that they had opened 1,100 cases of potential “crimes against peace” committed by captured Ukrainian service members, possibly paving the way for a mass show trial.

The fighting in Sievierodonetsk has come down to bloody, block-by-block combat, though a senior Ukrainian official, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Mr. Zelensky, suggested Thursday that Russia may have partially withdrawn to clear the battlefield for further artillery bombardments.

Sievierodonetsk lies on the mostly flat, eastern bank of the river and the Ukrainian forces’ sole supply line is a partially obstructed bridge. Two other bridges were blown up earlier in the fighting. On the river floodplain below one of the ruined bridges lies the upside-down wreck of a truck that plunged when the span was destroyed.

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On the high, western bank is the city of Lysychansk. The two cities form a single metropolitan area, separated only by the river. Lysychansk, on the high bank, is seen as a more defensible fallback position for the Ukrainians fighting in this area.

In Lysychansk, asphalt chunks, sheared-off tree branches and other debris from shelling litter the city’s streets, which were otherwise mostly empty on a visit this week. Broken power lines droop from poles. At one spot, an unexploded Russian rocket juts out of a sidewalk.

Abandoned and destroyed vehicles at a blown bridge over the Seversky Donets River, with smoke billowing in the distance from the battle in Sievierodonetsk.
A member of the Ukrainian regional police force patrolled near the Seversky Donets river, which divides the cities of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk.

Across the river, the streets in Sievierodonetsk were at moments eerily quiet, at other times a cacophony of gunshots and explosions.

Rapid fire from the large-caliber guns on armored personnel carriers, sounding like a jackhammer at work, echoed around the area.

A few miles to the west, another battle is raging across a pastoral landscape of rolling steppe and small villages, as Russian forces try to cut supply lines, surround the two cities and trap the Ukrainian fighters there. The two armies continually fire artillery at each other, with the Russians getting the upper hand for now.

A maze of rural back roads is now the only route in for the Ukrainians, and it is vulnerable to Russian artillery. In a field a few hundred yards off a road on Wednesday, a Ukrainian military vehicle burned and sent up a plume of black smoke.

“They are trying to make a circle, to trap all soldiers inside and destroy them,” said Mariana Bezugla, the deputy head of the Security, Defense and Intelligence Committee in Ukraine’s Parliament.

Ukrainian forces firing a salvo of rockets towards Russian positions near Sievierodonetsk last week.
Destroyed vehicles sat next to a large bomb crater last week in the largely deserted town of Siversk, around 20 miles from Sievierodonetsk.

The military does not disclose troop numbers, but Ms. Bezugla said several thousand Ukrainian soldiers are now deployed in the area at risk of being surrounded.

Ms. Bezugla wears a military uniform and gold-tinted aviator glasses while driving about in a van once used as an armored vehicle for a bank. She has been living in the potential encirclement zone for the past two weeks, she said, working to ensure that military aid to Ukraine is not misused. That issue is likely to rise in importance as billions of dollars in Western aid arrives.

That weaponry is flowing in, but not reaching the front quickly. Poland has promised tanks and armored vehicles, according to the Polish government. Norway has sent self-propelled howitzers, along with spare parts and ammunition. The United States and allies sent towed howitzers. And earlier this month, the United States and Britain promised advanced, mobile, multi-rocket launchers, what the Ukrainian military has said it needs to hit Russian targets far from the front.

But it’s unclear how much of it has arrived in the places it is most needed, and whether it will be enough.

“I cannot say that I am satisfied with the tempo and quantity of weapon supplies. Absolutely not,” said Mr. Reznikov, the minister of defense. “But at the same time, I am extremely ​grateful to the countries that support us.”

Civilians who had remained in the city were living in the basement of an apartment block in Lysychansk.
Fires burned at the Lysychansk oil refinery.

Ms. Bezugla said she was also thankful. “But for me, it’s hard to understand why help is given in doses, just enough to survive but not enough to win,” she said. “It worries me. Our people are dying every day here.”

Out in a field of green wheat shoots, one sign of the need for additional American military aid was the blown-up debris of earlier assistance. An American M777 howitzer had lost an artillery duel; it was blasted into several blackened, charred pieces amid craters from Russian artillery.

A destroyed, American-made M777 howitzer in a field outside the city of Lysychansk on Wednesday.

Reporting was contributed by Oleksandr Chubko from Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Marc Santora from Warsaw, Michael Levenson from New York, Dan Bilefsky from Montreal, Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia and Valerie Hopkins from Chernihiv, Ukraine.

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Filed Under: WORLD Tagged With: AI, Aid, Asphalt, Bridge, Cities, Georgia, Government, Human rights, Media, Men, Military, mobile, Morocco, Moving, New York, Next, Norway, Oil, Poland, Police, Race, Russia, Ukraine, United States, York

Taser maker halts drone project; most of its ethics panel resigns

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The headquarters for Axon Enterprise Inc, formerly Taser International, is seen in Scottsdale, Aizona, U.S., May 17, 2017. Picture taken May 17, 2017. To match Special Report USA-TASER/EXPERTS REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo

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June 6 (Reuters) – Taser-maker Axon Enterprise Inc (AXON.O) said it was halting a project to equip drones with stun guns to combat mass shootings, a reversal that did not stop most of its ethics advisory board members from announcing their resignation on Monday in protest over the original plans.

The May 24 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and two teachers, prompted Axon to announce last week it was working on a drone that first responders could operate remotely to fire a Taser at a target about 40 feet (12 m) away.

Nine of 12 members of the company’s AI Ethics Board quit over concerns the drones would harm over-policed communities and that Axon publicized its ambitions without consulting the group. The resignations and Axon’s scuttled plans were first reported by Reuters.

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“In light of feedback, we are pausing work on this project and refocusing to further engage with key constituencies to fully explore the best path forward,” Chief Executive Rick Smith said in a statement.

The action by ethics board members marked a rare public rebuke for one of the watchdog groups some companies have set up to gather feedback on emerging technologies, such as drones and artificial intelligence (AI) software.

Smith said it was unfortunate that members withdrew before Axon could address their technical questions, but the company “will continue to seek diverse perspectives to challenge our thinking.”

Axon, which also sells body-worn cameras and policing software, has said its clients include about 17,000 out of the roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States.

It explored the idea of a Taser-equipped drone for police since at least 2016, and Smith depicted how one could stop an active shooter in a graphic novel he wrote. The novel shows a daycare center with what looks like an enlarged smoke alarm, which first recognizes the sound of gunfire and then ejects a drone, identifying and tasing the shooter in two seconds.

Axon first approached its ethics board more than a year ago about Taser-equipped drones, and the panel last month voted eight to four against running a limited police pilot of the technology.

The company announced the drone idea anyway, as it said it wanted to get past “fruitless debates” on guns after the Uvalde shooting, sending shares up nearly 6%. They were down 0.5% on Monday.

Ethics board members worried the drones could exacerbate racial injustice, undermine privacy through surveillance and become more lethal if other weapons were added, member Wael Abd-Almageed said in an interview.

“What we have right now is just dangerous and irresponsible,” said Abd-Almageed, an engineering research associate professor at University of Southern California.

The board likewise had not evaluated use of the drones by first responders outside police, it said. And members questioned how a drone could navigate closed doors to stop a shooting.

The drone is “distracting society from real solutions to a tragic problem,” resigning board members said in a Monday statement.

CEO Smith has said drones could be stationed in hallways and move into rooms through special vents. A drone system would cost a school about $1,000 annually, he said.

Formed in 2018, the ethics panel has guided Axon productively on sensitive technologies such as facial recognition in the past.

Giles Herdale, one of the remaining ethics board members, told Reuters he chose not to resign because he could have more influence “if I am in the tent than outside it.”

For others, the company’s drone announcement prior to a formal report by the board broke with practice, said member Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor.

“I’m not going to stay on an advisory board for a company that departs so far from expectation and protocol or, frankly, who believes ubiquitous surveillance coupled with remote non-lethal weapons is a viable response to school shootings,” he said.

Barry Friedman, the board chairman, resigned as well.

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Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, Calif., and Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif.; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel and Tomasz Janowski

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Filed Under: BUSINESS Tagged With: 24, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial intelligence (AI), California, Cameras, Children, Communities, Engineering, Ethics, Facial recognition, Law, Light, Mass Shootings, Oakland, Police, Privacy, Protest, Research, Reuters, Running, Shares, Society, Software, Surveillance, technology, Texas, United States, Washington

Live Ukraine Updates: Calling Off Steel Plant Assault, Putin Prematurely Claims Victory in Mariupol

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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia claimed victory in Mariupol on Thursday despite persistent fighting there, publicly calling off an assault on the final Ukrainian stronghold in the devastated city in a stark display of the Kremlin’s desire to present a success to the Russian public.

Mr. Putin ordered his defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, in a choreographed meeting shown on Russian television, not to storm the sprawling, fortress-like Azovstal steel mill complex where 2,000 Ukrainian fighters were said to be holed up, and instead to blockade the plant “so that a fly can’t get through.” That avoids, for now, a bloody battle in the strategic port city that would add to Russia’s mounting casualty toll and tie down troops who could be deployed to the broader battle for eastern Ukraine.

“Of course, getting control of such an important center in the south as Mariupol is a success,” Mr. Putin was shown telling Mr. Shoigu, though the city is not yet fully under Russian control. “Congratulations.”

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President Vladimir V. Putin used a choreographed meeting with his defense minister to claim major progress in the war, saying that he ordered Russian troops to blockade a steel plant where Ukrainian fighters and civilians have taken refuge.CreditCredit…Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

The fight for Mariupol carries enormous significance for both sides. It is the last pocket of serious resistance in the land bridge the Kremlin has created between territory it already holds in the Donbas region in the east and the Crimean Peninsula in the south. It is also home to much of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, filled with far-right fighters who give a sheen of credibility to Mr. Putin’s false claim that Ukraine is run by Nazis and that he is “denazifying” the country.

The battle for the city also illustrates both the brutality of the Russian invasion and its struggles — truths that have galvanized much of the world but that Moscow has worked hard to conceal from its own people. Mariupol has been under siege for more than a month, much of it lies in ruins, and satellite images show a growing mass grave on the city’s outskirts. Roughly three-quarters of the residents have fled and, according to Ukrainian officials, about 20,000 civilians there have been killed — yet it is still not fully conquered.

Russia is shifting the focus of the war to gaining territory and wiping out Ukrainian forces in Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukraine since 2014. Britain’s Defense Ministry said Thursday in an intelligence assessment that the Kremlin is eager to make swift gains that it can trumpet on May 9, at the annual celebrations of victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

At the White House, President Biden said the fight for Donbas was “going to be more limited in terms of geography but not in terms of brutality,” compared to the early phase of the war. But, he added, Russia will “never succeed in dominating and occupying all of Ukraine.”

Mr. Biden announced another $800 million package of weapons for Ukraine, including dozens of heavy howitzers, 144,000 shells for them, and tactical drones, bringing total military aid this year to well above $3 billion. The weapons supplied by NATO nations are becoming increasingly heavy and sophisticated, reflecting an expected shift in the nature of combat as the war pivots to Donbas, but the president said some of armaments will remain secret.

President Biden speaking about the war in Ukraine from the White House on Thursday.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York Times

“We won’t always be able to advertise everything that we, that our partners are doing,” Mr. Biden said. Referring to the U.S.-made antitank missile that Ukrainians have used to devastating effect, he added, “To modernize Teddy Roosevelt’s advice, sometimes we will speak softly and carry a large Javelin.”

Mr. Biden also banned ships tied to Russia from U.S. ports, and announced $500 million in economic aid to Ukraine — though the government in Kyiv told the International Monetary Fund that over the next three months it will need $15 billion. The White House also detailed plans for accepting up to 100,000 refugees from Ukraine, saying that U.S. citizens can begin applying to sponsor the immigrants on Monday.

The war in Ukraine took center stage in the French presidential campaign in a televised debate Wednesday night between President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right challenger, Marine Le Pen, who has in the past praised Mr. Putin. She spoke against arming Ukraine and said Mr. Macron’s efforts to cut imports of Russian energy would hurt France economically. He replied, “you are, in fact, in Russia’s grip,” noting that Ms. Le Pen’s party had borrowed from a Kremlin-linked bank.

The Kremlin worked quickly to portray the battle for Mariupol as a success. Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, told reporters that there was now “an opportunity to start establishing a peaceful life” in Mariupol and start “returning the population to their homes.”

Mr. Peskov described the Azovstal steel plant — an immense Soviet-era complex near the city center — as “a separate facility” with no impact on life elsewhere in the city. Ukrainian fighters have been hiding for weeks in the plant’s underground bunkers, along with about 1,000 civilians, amid rising concerns they lack food and water.

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SEA OF AZOV

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Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, said on Wednesday that his troops would soon help Russia capture the Azovstal plant in its entirety. In Thursday’s televised meeting, Mr. Shoigu told Mr. Putin that it would take three to four days to clear the plant.

But Mr. Putin responded by calling the storming of the plant “impractical,” and added, “I order it to be canceled.”

It was not clear what that would mean on the ground; shelling and rocket attacks on the steel mill complex continued on Thursday, Staff Sgt. Leonid Kuznetsov of the Ukrainian National Guard, one of the soldiers there, said via text message. He said that shortly before he heard about Mr. Putin’s public order, Russian troops had attempted to storm the plant, coming within about 20 meters of his hide-out. The Ukrainians, he said, were running out of ammunition.

In directing Mr. Shoigu on a national broadcast, Mr. Putin, who made the decision to go to war, presented himself as a rational and humane leader. “This is the case when we must think — that is, we must always think, but even more so in this case — about preserving the life and health of our soldiers and officers,” he said. “There is no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground through these industrial facilities.”

Implicit in his statement was a potential credibility challenge for Mr. Putin, stemming from his unwillingness to admit setbacks and blunders in the war to his own people. The government and military have not acknowledged the deaths of Russian sailors on the missile cruiser Moskva, pride of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, which was sunk last week, but information about missing troops is increasingly circulating online.

Coming after Russia’s decision last month to abandon its stalled campaign in the north of Ukraine, the sinking of the Moskva — Ukraine claims to have hit it with two missiles — and the morass in Mariupol, once a thriving industrial and shipping hub, underscore the systemic weaknesses bedeviling the Russian military.

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On Jan. 20, The New York Times captured drone video over the sprawling Azovstal Steel and Iron works complex in Mariupol, Ukraine. Now, it is a battered fortress for the last Ukrainian defenders.

But costly as Mariupol has been for Russia, it is far costlier for Ukraine. Civilian casualties are high, though for now there are only rough estimates, and nearly all the vital infrastructure — including some of Ukraine’s biggest export-oriented enterprises — have been destroyed. Hospitals, theaters, schools and homes have been reduced to rubble.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Thursday that he would trade Russian soldiers who had been taken prisoner for the civilians sheltered at Azovstal, but he said that Russia had not yet responded to the offer.

Agreements to evacuate civilians en masse or bring in vital aid have mostly been thwarted, and have sometimes turned deadly, largely because Russian units have halted or fired on aid convoys. But day by day, people have managed to escape, on their own or in small groups.

On Thursday, a yellow bus carrying dozens of people from Mariupol arrived in the central Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, where passengers described weeks hiding in basements, cold and hungry, amid endless shelling. They escaped in a harrowing, all-night drive through Russian-held territory, past countless checkpoints manned by jumpy Russian soldiers.

Ukrainian families arriving in Zaporizhzhia after fleeing from the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol on Thursday.Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

“In the city everything is destroyed, it’s terrifying,” said Matvei Popko, 10, who had fled with his mother, father and grandmother. “At any moment your home could get hit and collapse. For a little more than a month we lived in the basement.”

Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of forcibly deporting hundreds of thousands of civilians, including a large number from the Mariupol area, to Russian territory, for use as propaganda fodder and a bargaining chip. Russia denies the charge, which is a potential war crime.

The weeks of heavy fighting in Mariupol tied up a significant chunk of Russia’s combat power; at one point the battle was estimated by military analysts to include roughly 10 percent of all the Russian forces in Ukraine.

On Thursday, a Russian video news report from the scene showed a convoy of armored vehicles moving out of Mariupol. Seymon Pegov, a pro-Kremlin reporter embedded with the Russian forces in the city, interviewed Timur Kurilkin, a commander of a separatist battalion from Donetsk, a city in separatist-held eastern Ukraine.

“We are going home, to Donetsk,” said Mr. Kurilkin, walking past the vehicles. “Our next battle is tomorrow,” he said, without specifying where.

In Mariupol, Russia is already seeking to establish authority over civilian life. Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, promised high school seniors that they would receive diplomas certified by the separatist entity.

On Wednesday, Andrei Turchak, a top official in Mr. Putin’s party, visited a school in Mariupol, which has already switched to Russian-language curriculum. In a video of his visit, posted to social media, he said, “Many textbooks have already been delivered and these deliveries will continue.”

Anton Troianovski reported from Hamburg, Germany, Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Reporting was contributed by Michael Schwirtz from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, David E. Sanger and Zach Montague from Washington, Neil MacFarquhar from Istanbul, Matthew Mpoke Bigg from London, Alan Yuhas from New York, and Cora Engelbrecht from Krakow, Poland.

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Live Updates: Putin Draws Line on U.S. Arms for Ukraine

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Stung by war losses and massing troops for a new battle in eastern Ukraine, Russia has warned the Biden administration to stop supplying advanced weapons to Ukrainian forces or face “unpredictable consequences,” American officials said Friday.

The Russian message — one of a series of warnings punctuated by a formal protest note, delivered on Tuesday — suggested rising concerns in Moscow that the weapons were seriously hindering Russia’s combat capabilities.

The existence of the message was disclosed as the Kremlin was funneling armaments, including attack helicopters, to Russia’s border with eastern Ukraine for the next phase of its two-month-old invasion of the country.

Over the course of the war, the U.S. administration has provided increasingly heavier weapons to the Ukrainians — including 155-mm howitzers — as the conflict has ramped up, and it announced a new $800 million arms package this week.

Back in February, as the war began, the administration worried such weaponry could unnecessarily provoke Russia. But after coming under pressure from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and members of Congress from both parties, the administration has decided to provide some of the kinds of heavy weapons it says Ukraine will require in the next phase of the war.

The Russian warnings have come as the invasion has met unexpectedly stiff Ukrainian resistance and has exposed weaknesses in Russia’s conventional armed forces.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has installed a new command to oversee the Ukraine war and this past week publicly suggested for the first time that Russia’s goals were limited to securing the Donbas, the section of eastern Ukraine bordering Russia where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting for eight years.

Russia’s goals when its military invaded on Feb. 24 appeared far more ambitious, with plans to besiege and capture the capital, Kyiv, in the north, cutting off Mr. Zelensky’s government from the rest of the former Soviet republic, which Mr. Putin has said he does not even consider a country.

That strategy backfired and Russian forces retreated last month. They also have failed to completely seize the strategic southeast port of Mariupol despite relentless bombardments that have turned that once bustling city of 450,000 into a wasteland of death and war’s destructive horrors.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region of Eastern Ukraine, told CNN on Friday that Ukrainian troops were still in control of Mariupol, but that the city had been “wiped off the face of the earth by the Russian Federation, by those who will never be able to restore it.”

Destruction near the Illich Steel and Iron Works plant in Mariupol on Friday.Credit…Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

In what appeared to be another military embarrassment for Russia that it has sought to cover up, a senior U.S. defense official said Friday that Russia’s Black Sea flagship Moskva, a missile cruiser that sank Thursday, had been struck by two Ukrainian Neptune missiles, and not crippled by an accidental fire and explosion during a storm, as the Kremlin has asserted.

It was the first American corroboration of Ukraine’s claims that its Neptune missiles — a newly deployed weapon with a 190-mile range — had hit the ship, which was struck 65 miles south of the port of Odesa.

The loss of the Moskva was more than just a humiliation, as it could now seriously impair any Kremlin plans for an amphibious assault on Ukraine’s southern coast. The loss also raised questions about Russian dominance of Ukraine’s airspace and the apparent inability of the Moskva, a sophisticated warship, to evade or intercept the Neptunes with its own defense systems.

The U.S. official said that American intelligence assessments had indicated an unspecified number of casualties, contradicting Russian claims that all crew members had been safely evacuated.

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The Russian diplomatic protest note, called a démarche, was sent through normal channels, two administration officials said, and was not signed by Mr. Putin or other senior Russian officials. But it was an indicator, one administration official said, that the weapons sent by the United States were having an effect.

American officials said the tone of the note was consistent with a series of public Russian threats, including to target deliveries of weapons as they moved across Ukrainian territory.

Officials said the note did not prompt any special concern inside the White House. But it has touched off a broader discussion inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about whether the “unpredictable consequences” could include trying to target or sabotage some of the weapons shipments while still in NATO territory, before they are transferred to Ukrainians for the final journey into the hands of Ukrainian troops. The delivery of the protest note was first reported by The Washington Post.

The weapons President Biden authorized this week for transfer to the Ukrainians include long-range artillery that is suited for what American officials believe will be a different style of battle in the open areas of the Donbas, where Russian forces appear to be massing for an attack in coming days.

Pentagon officials were insistent in the run-up to the war that the United States provide only defensive weaponry that would avoid escalation.

Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, described in an interview at the Washington Economic Club on Thursday how he and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had reviewed weapons requests. They went over each item with their Ukrainian counterparts, talking about what the United States had in its stocks and what it could deliver quickly.

Reports by pro-Kremlin media have highlighted antitank systems and other Western weapons used by Ukrainian forces, promoting the idea that Russia is not at war with Ukraine but with an American-led alliance seeking to destroy Russia. Mr. Biden and his aides have denied that, saying that they wished to avoid direct conflict with Russia and had no interest in American-engineered regime change.

In Moscow, commentators have been increasingly calling on Russia to strike Ukrainian roads and railroads to inhibit the weapons transfers. While Russia has targeted many of Ukraine’s airports, the country’s ground transportation network remains largely intact.

“The time has come not to speak, but to attack,” Viktor Baranets, a military columnist for Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russia’s biggest tabloid, said on Friday. “Train echelons must be destroyed along with the railways.”

Russia’s concern may partly be over the accuracy Ukraine showed in hitting the Moskva, one of its most sophisticated warships.

A satellite image released by Maxar Technologies showed the warship Moskva docked last week at a port in Sevastopol, Crimea.Credit…Maxar Technologies

The Russian démarche echoed the public rhetoric of officials in Moscow, who have been warning for weeks that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine would prolong the war and be met with a tough response.

It came as the level of concern among Russian officials over the impact of Western arms has been increasing, said Andrei Kortunov, the director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research organization close to the Kremlin.

“It seems the United States and the West in general are right now testing the limits of Russian tolerance when it comes to weapons deliveries,” Mr. Kortunov said. “It’s clear that these volumes are already so significant that they can affect the course of the hostilities, and this is raising concerns.”

A Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, said on Friday that Russia was “making it clear to the Americans and other Westerners” that attempts to hamper what Russia is calling its “special military operation” in Ukraine and increase Russian losses would be “curbed in a tough manner.”

Ukrainians pulling an abandoned Russian tank from a field near the village of Lypivka, west of Kyiv, on Friday.Credit…David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

He added that NATO vehicles carrying weapons across Ukrainian territory would be “viewed by us as legitimate military targets.” His comments came in an interview with Tass, the state-run news agency.

NATO hands off weapons to the Ukrainians in ways that seek to avoid having the alliance’s vehicles traverse Ukrainian soil. But Mr. Ryabkov’s comments have heightened concerns about whether Russia would take the risk of striking inside NATO territory.

When Mr. Putin announced his “special military operation” on Feb. 24, he said that those “who may be tempted to interfere” in Ukraine would face consequences as severe “as you have never seen in your entire history.”

A photo released by Russian state media shows President Vladimir V. Putin chairing a Security Council meeting via videoconference on Friday in Moscow.Credit…Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik

“No matter how the events unfold, we are ready,” Mr. Putin said at the time. “All the necessary decisions in this regard have been taken.”

But Russia has so far appeared careful not to escalate the conflict in a way that could draw NATO countries more directly — for instance, not striking weapons convoys crossing into Ukraine from Poland.

“There are still fears regarding strikes that may hit the territory of NATO member countries,” Mr. Kortunov said. “One certainly does not want to create a pretext for some further escalation.”

David E. Sanger and Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and Anton Troianovski from Istanbul. Reporting was contributed by Marc Santora from Krakow, Poland; Michael Schwirtz from Lviv, Ukraine; and Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

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Filed Under: WORLD Tagged With: 24, AI, Airports, Biden administration, Black Sea, CNN, Crimea, Earth, Government, Helicopters, History, Kyiv, Media, Military, National, Nato, New York, Next, Poland, Protest, Railroads, Research, Russia, State, Steel and Iron, Strikes, The Open, Transportation, Ukraine, United States, Washington, Washington Post, York

CoStar Group acquisisce Business Immo, servizio di informazioni leader in Francia per l'industria degli immobili commerciali

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WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP), fornitore leader di marketplace immobiliari online, informazioni e analisi per il settore delle proprietà commerciali e residenziali, oggi ha annunciato l’acquisizione di Business Immo, il principale servizio di informazioni per l’industria immobiliare commerciale francese.

Business Immo è stata fondata nel 2004 e si è rapidamente sviluppata come fonte di informazioni online con copertura nazionale sul mercato francese degli immobili commerciali. Oggi Business Immo è ampiamente riconosciuta come fornitore leader di informazioni digitali sulle proprietà commerciali in Francia, con oltre 300.000 visitatori unici ogni mese, tra cui broker, investitori, costruttori e finanziatori. Rinomata per le notizie online e per le riviste cartacee di grande impatto, Business Immo ha ampliato il suo portafoglio di prodotti per includere formazione, addestramento e conferenze di settore. La pubblicazione vanta oltre 2.000 società abbonate e 100.000 follower sui social.

L’acquisizione di Business Immo costituisce un’importante aggiunta al crescente team di notizie globali di CoStar Group, che offre una copertura quotidiana in tutti gli Stati Uniti e in Canada, Regno Unito e Germania, e anche tramite Hotel News Now, il servizio informativo dedicato all’industria alberghiera internazionale di CoStar. Forte di oltre 235.000 abbonati e di 19.000 articoli pubblicati nel 2021, CoStar news è tra le maggiori reti di notizie immobiliari al mondo, a livello nazionale e internazionale. I giornalisti di CoStar di recente hanno ottenuto otto premi, tra cui tre medaglie d’oro, dalla National Association of Real Estate Editors, la principale organizzazione per il giornalismo immobiliare negli Stati Uniti.

“Con l’acquisizione di Business Immo aggiungiamo un ulteriore asset di qualità elevata alla nostra presenza internazionale in piena espansione”, è stato il commento di Andrew C. Florance, fondatore e Chief Executive Officer di CoStar Group. “Siamo attivamente impegnati nella realizzazione di notizie, informazioni e dei nostri marketplace in Europa; la Francia, con transazioni di investimento del valore stimato di 40 miliardi di euro all’anno, è tra i mercati immobiliari più importanti al mondo. Esiste una stretta interconnessione tra notizie e informazioni sugli immobili commerciali, e per CoStar Group questa relazione è molto importante, dato che il valore delle notizie che offriamo richiama le persone verso la piattaforma. Business Immo offre servizi informativi indipendenti di altissimo livello e vanta un’eccellente reputazione tra intermediatori, proprietari, enti finanziari e altri attori del mercato immobiliare. Siamo entusiasti di accogliere in CoStar Group il team di Business Immo, incluso il suo stimatissimo team manageriale che continuerà a dirigere l’attività”.

“Entrando a far parte di CoStar Group, Business Immo dà il via a una nuova fase del proprio sviluppo”, ha dichiarato Sandra Roumi, Président Déléguée di Business Immo. “La nostra strategia fondata su notizie, eventi e formazione nel comparto degli immobili commerciali si completa alla perfezione con CoStar Group. Insieme, punteremo alla crescita nelle nostre attività, con un particolare interesse verso la miglior tecnologia dell’informazione”.

Per ulteriori informazioni su Business Immo visitare il sito BusinessImmo.com.

Informazioni su CoStar Group, Inc.

CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP) è un importante fornitore di marketplace, informazioni e analisi online in materia immobiliare. Fondata nel 1987, CoStar conduce ricerche approfondite e a ciclo continuo per creare e gestire il database più ampio e completo di informazioni sugli immobili commerciali. Grazie alla nostra suite di servizi online, i clienti possono analizzare, interpretare e acquisire preziose informazioni sul valore delle proprietà commerciali, sulle condizioni di mercato e sulle disponibilità aggiornate. STR propone al settore dell’ospitalità globale capacità di benchmark dei dati, analisi e approfondimenti di mercato di qualità superiore. Ten-X offre una piattaforma leader per le aste immobiliari commerciali online e per le offerte negoziate. LoopNet è il marketplace online di proprietà commerciali più frequentato. Apartments.com, ApartmentFinder.com, ForRent.com, ApartmentHomeLiving.com, Westside Rentals, AFTER55.com, CorporateHousing.com, ForRentUniversity.com e Apartamentos.com formano la principale risorsa online per gli affittuari alla ricerca di appartamenti di qualità e mettono a disposizione di gestori e proprietari di immobili una rodata piattaforma per commercializzare le loro proposte. Homesnap è un’importante piattaforma online e mobile leader di settore che propone applicazioni di semplice utilizzo per ottimizzare il flusso di lavoro degli agenti immobiliari attivi nel comparto residenziale e consolidare il rapporto professionale tra agenti e clienti. Homes.com offre servizi di pubblicità e marketing destinati agli immobili residenziali ai professionisti del settore. Realla è il marketplace digitale per le proprietà commerciali più completo del Regno Unito. BureauxLocaux è uno dei maggiori portali di settore per l’acquisto e la locazione di proposte commerciali in Francia. I siti Web di CoStar Group ogni mese richiamano decine di milioni di visitatori unici. CoStar Group ha sede a Washington, DC, e gestisce uffici negli Stati Uniti, in Europa, in Canada e in Asia. Periodicamente programmiamo di utilizzare il nostro sito internet aziendale, www.costargroup.com, come canale per la distribuzione di informazioni importanti sull’azienda. Per ulteriori informazioni visitare il sito www.costargroup.com.

Questo comunicato stampa include “dichiarazioni a carattere previsionale” comprese, ma non a titolo esaustivo, dichiarazioni sulle aspettative, le convinzioni, le intenzioni o le strategie di CoStar Group riguardo al futuro. Queste affermazioni si basano sulle convinzioni attuali e sono soggette a numerosi rischi e incertezze che potrebbero causare una differenza sostanziale tra i risultati effettivi e tali dichiarazioni, incluso il rischio che Business Immo non sia in grado di conservare o consolidare la propria posizione di mercato in Francia; il rischio che non sia possibile combinare le attività di Business Immo e CoStar Group con successo o in modo tempestivo ed efficiente in termini di costi; il rischio che la combinazione e l’integrazione di Business Immo influiscano negativamente sulle operazioni di CoStar Group o provochino la perdita di clienti o dipendenti strategici; il rischio che l’acquisizione di Business Immo non produca i benefici o i risultati previsti per CoStar o per Business Immo, o ancora per i loro clienti, incluse la maggior presenza e portata dei loro nuovi servizi e la crescita delle attività. Ulteriori informazioni sui potenziali fattori che potrebbero comportare una differenza sostanziale tra i risultati e quanto previsto nelle dichiarazioni a carattere previsionale includono, ma non a titolo esaustivo, quanto riportato nei documenti depositati periodicamente da CoStar Group presso la Securities and Exchange Commission, tra cui la relazione annuale di CoStar sul modulo 10-K relativa all’esercizio terminato il 31 dicembre 2021, depositata presso la SEC, incluse le sezioni “Risk Factors” (Fattori di rischio) di tali materiali, e gli altri documenti di CoStar depositati presso la SEC e disponibili sul sito web di quest’ultima (www.sec.gov). Tutte le dichiarazioni a carattere previsionale si basano su informazioni a disposizione di CoStar Group alla data di questo comunicato. CoStar Group non si assume alcun obbligo di aggiornare o rivedere tali dichiarazioni a carattere previsionale a seguito di nuove informazioni, eventi futuri o altro.

Il testo originale del presente annuncio, redatto nella lingua di partenza, è la versione ufficiale che fa fede. Le traduzioni sono offerte unicamente per comodità del lettore e devono rinviare al testo in lingua originale, che è l’unico giuridicamente valido.

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Filed Under: REAL ESTATE Tagged With: AI, Business, Canada, Euro, Homes, Internet, mobile, Nasdaq, National, Real estate, Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington

Tesla seeks investor approval for stock split, article with image

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March 28 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) will seek investor approval to increase its number of shares to enable a stock split in the form of a dividend, the electric-car maker said on Monday, sending its shares up about 5%.

The plan came as the company suspended its Shanghai factory amid COVID-19-related lockdown measures and its artificial intelligence head took a sabbatical as the company aims to achieve full self-driving capability this year.

The proposal, first announced on Twitter, has been approved by its board and shareholders will vote on it at an annual meeting. The stock split, if approved, would be the latest after a five-for-one split in August 2020 that made Tesla shares cheaper for its employees and investors.

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Following a pandemic-induced rally in the technology shares, Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Apple Inc (AAPL.O), too, have in the recent past split their shares to make them more affordable.

Tesla shares soar after stock split in 2020 Tesla shares soar after stock split in 2020

Since the stock split in 2020, they have surged 128%, boosting the company’s market capitalization above $1 trillion and making it the biggest U.S. automaker by that measure.

“This (stock split) could further fuel the bubble in Tesla’s stock that has been brewing over the past two years,” said David Trainer, chief executive of investment research firm New Constructs.

Tesla has delivered nearly a million electric cars annually, while ramping up production by setting up new factories in Austin and Berlin amid COVID-19-related disruptions and increasing competition.

Model Y cars are pictured during the opening ceremony of the new Tesla Gigafactory for electric cars in Gruenheide, Germany, March 22, 2022. Patrick Pleul/Pool via REUTERS

Tesla on Monday notified its suppliers and workers that its Shanghai factory in China will be closed for four days as the financial hub said it would lock down in two stages to carry out mass COVID-19 testing. read more

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Monday that he had “supposedly” tested positive for COVID-19, a few days after he attended a car delivery event at the company’s new Berlin factory.

“We think Berlin ramping, and both the MiniCar and India are on the horizon, we would agree with the timing,” Roth Capital analyst Craig Irwin said, hinting that companies usually execute stock splits when good news is ahead.

AI CHIEF

Musk also said on Sunday Tesla’s artificial intelligence chief Andrej Karpathy was on a fourth-month sabbatical, at a critical time that Musk wants to achieve full self-driving capability and roll out a humanoid robot prototype this year.

“Especially excited to get focused time to re-sharpen my technical edge and train some neural nets!” Karparthy tweeted.

“Though I already miss all the robots and GPU/Dojo clusters and looking forward to having them at my fingertips again,” he said, referring to Tesla’s AI chip Dojo.

Musk said in a podcast interview in January that Karpathy played an important role, adding: “People will give me too much credit and they’ll give Andrej too much credit.”

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Reporting by Nivedita Balu and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Editing by Maju Samuel, Arun Koyyur and Bernadette Baum

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Filed Under: BUSINESS Tagged With: AI, Alphabet, Alphabet Inc, Amazon, Amazon.com Inc, Apple, Apple Inc, article, Artificial Intelligence, Austin, China, COVID-19, Elon Musk, Germany, India, Production, Research, Robots, San Francisco, Shares, technology, Tesla, Twitter

Midwest Bank Partners With Lendsmart to Streamline the Entire Homebuying Journey

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NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Midwest Bank, a locally-owned community bank, providing loans, mortgages, financial planning and investment services throughout central Illinois, has selected Lendsmart, an AI-driven digital lending platform, to improve its digital lending and home buying operations.

With Lendsmart’s technology, Midwest Bank will own its customer journey end to end, helping borrowers acquire a loan and offering ancillary services to allow the borrower to move into a home in record time. At the same time, improving accuracy, minimizing lender risk, and reducing origination and operational costs.

Since its establishment in 1870, Midwest Bank has been committed to its customers and the communities it serves. The bank strives to offer innovative products and services and cutting-edge technology to its valued customers.

“Our business was built on the relationships we have with our customers, and partnering with Lendsmart will allow us to offer them a superior experience when it comes to applying for a loan or moving into a new home,” said Chris Gavin, President & CEO at Midwest Bank. “We’re looking forward to evolving our digital lending and mortgage capabilities with Lendsmart’s support.”

Lendsmart digitizes up to 70% of the lending and home buying processes, leveraging AI to autocomplete elements of the mortgage applications and validate data in real-time. As a result, providing instant approvals and helping customers acquire a loan in a matter of weeks. The platform brings all parties involved together to unify the process every step of the way.

“We’re pleased that Midwest Bank has selected Lendsmart as a digital lending and homebuying solution,” said AK Patel, Founder and CEO of Lendsmart. “With our technology, we’ll be able to help Midwest Bank significantly reduce loan origination processing time to close more loans and improve the borrower experience.”

About Lendsmart

Lendsmart, founded in 2018, is an AI-driven digital lending platform that automates and digitizes lending and homebuying operations to create a single, automated conversational experience for banks, credit unions, and non-bank lenders. Using artificial intelligence to digitize up to 70% of the lending and home buying processes, Lendsmart allows borrowers to get a loan, refinance, or purchase a home in record time. For more information, visit www.lendsmart.ai.

About Midwest Bank

Midwest Bank, headquartered in Monmouth, Illinois is a locally-owned, community bank, providing loans, mortgages, financial planning and investment services throughout several locations across central Illinois. Midwest Bank believes in making the communities that serve a better place to live and work. The bank strives to have a positive impact through community involvement both financially and philanthropically. For more information, visit www.mbwi.com.

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Filed Under: REAL ESTATE Tagged With: AI, Artificial Intelligence, Business, Communities, Credit Unions, home buying, Illinois, Information, Mortgages, Moving, Relationships, technology, Unions

Live Updates: In Phone Call, Biden Warns Putin of ‘Severe’ Costs of Invading Ukraine

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Video

transcript

bars

0:00/1:32

–0:00

transcript

Russia Could Invade Ukraine at Any Time, U.S. Says

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, warned that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could launch a major assault on Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, but said that Mr. Putin had not reached a final decision yet.

“We are in the window when an invasion could begin at any time should Vladimir Putin decide to order it. I will not comment on the details of our intelligence information, but I do want to be clear: It could begin during the Olympics. We encourage all American citizens who remain in Ukraine to depart immediately. We want to be crystal clear on this point. Any American in Ukraine should leave as soon as possible and in any event, in the next 24 to 48 hours. We obviously cannot predict the future. We don’t know exactly what is going to happen, but the risk is now high enough and the threat is now immediate enough that this is what prudence demands. If you stay, you are assuming risk with no guarantee that there will be any other opportunity to leave, and there — no prospect of a U.S. military evacuation in the event of a Russian invasion.” Reporter: “Does the United States believe that the president — pardon me — that President Putin has made a decision because PBS NewsHour just reported a little bit ago that the United States does believe that Putin has made a decision, and has also communicated that decision to the Russian military. Is that accurate?” “The report that you just referenced, which I have not seen yet, it does not accurately capture what the U.S. government’s view is today. Our view is that we do not believe he has made any kind of final decision or we don’t know that he has made any final decision, and we have not communicated that to anybody.”

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Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, warned that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could launch a major assault on Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, but said that Mr. Putin had not reached a final decision yet.CreditCredit…Photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

President Biden warned Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Saturday that invading Ukraine would result in “swift and severe” costs to Russia, diminish his country’s standing and cause “widespread human suffering,” as Western officials made another diplomatic push to dissuade Mr. Putin from pressing forward with an attack.

It remained unclear if Mr. Putin would invade, according to senior administration officials. One senior national security official, who briefed reporters shortly after the call took place, said that there was “no fundamental change in the dynamic that has unfolded now for several weeks,” an acknowledgment that Mr. Putin has continued to build up a military presence that has effectively surrounded Ukraine.

After the call, a senior administration official said that the situation remained as urgent as it was on Friday when Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, warned Americans to leave the country in the coming days.

The official pointed out that the Russians were continuing their military buildup even as Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin prepared to speak, underscoring concern among U.S. officials that Mr. Putin was capable of initiating a major military incursion, even if it remained unclear if he would actually do so.

The officials discussed the call on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Russian government was expected to present its assessment of the call soon.

The two leaders spoke just hours after the State Department ordered all but a “core team” of its diplomats and employees to leave the American Embassy in Kyiv over fears that Moscow would soon mount a major assault.

Reflecting the urgent concern in Washington over Russia’s growing military buildup surrounding its smaller neighbor, the Pentagon said it would temporarily pull 160 American military trainers out of the country, where they had been working with Ukrainian troops near the Polish border.

Even as Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin spoke by telephone — and after calls earlier Saturday between the top U.S. and Russian diplomats and between the countries’ defense secretaries — the path to a diplomatic resolution to the standoff appeared to be narrowing, with growing numbers of Russian and Russian-backed forces massing around Ukraine on three sides.

U.S. intelligence officials had thought Mr. Putin was prepared to wait until the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing before possibly ordering an offensive, to avoid antagonizing President Xi Jinping of China, a critical ally. But in recent days, they say, the timeline began moving up, an acceleration that Biden administration officials began publicly acknowledging on Friday.

“We continue to see signs of Russian escalation, including new forces arriving at the Ukrainian border,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters on Friday, adding that an invasion could begin “during the Olympics,” which are scheduled to end on Feb. 20.

U.S. officials do not know whether Mr. Putin has decided to invade, Mr. Sullivan insisted. “We are ready either way,” he said. “Whatever happens next, the West is more united than it has been in years.”





Border with Russian units

KAZAKHSTAN

Russian units

SEA OF

AZOV

Transnistria, a

Russian-backed

breakaway region

of Moldova.

Russia invaded and

annexed the Crimean

Peninsula from

Ukraine in 2014.

Approximate line

separating Ukrainian and

Russian-backed forces near

two breakaway provinces.

Border with

Russian units

Russian

units

Russia annexed

the Crimean

Peninsula from

Ukraine in 2014.

Transnistria, a

Russian-backed

breakaway region

of Moldova.

Approximate line

separating Ukrainian

and Russian-backed

forces.

The United States has picked up intelligence that Russia is discussing next Wednesday as the target date for the start of military action, officials said, acknowledging the possibility that mentioning a particular date could be part of a Russian disinformation effort.

The Ukrainian government urged calm, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying that he had not seen intelligence indicating an imminent Russian attack, and that “too much information” about a possible offensive was sowing unnecessary fear.

The United States has ruled out sending troops to defend Ukraine, but it has increased deployments to NATO member countries in Eastern Europe. The Pentagon on Friday said it had ordered 3,000 more soldiers to Poland.

The White House is eager to avoid a repeat of the chaotic evacuation of the U.S. Embassy staff from Kabul last August as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. The United States and countries including Britain, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Latvia and the Netherlands have issued increasingly urgent calls for their citizens to leave Ukraine. On Saturday, KLM, the main Dutch airline, announced that it will stop flying to Ukraine, citing the security situation.

A State Department official emphasized on Saturday that the U.S. military would not be evacuating American citizens from Ukraine in the way troops did in Afghanistan.

Russia has accused Western countries of spreading misinformation about its intentions. On Saturday, its Foreign Ministry said it was pulling some of its diplomatic personnel out of Ukraine because it was “drawing the conclusion that our American and British colleagues seem to know about certain military actions.”

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Filed Under: WORLD Tagged With: 24, Afghanistan, AI, Beijing, Biden administration, China, Denmark, Eastern Europe, Europe, Germany, Government, Information, Japan, Latvia, Media, Military, Moving, National, Nato, Netherlands, New York, Next, Poland, Russia, State, State Department, Taliban, Ukraine, United States, Vladimir Putin, Washington, winter, Winter Olympics, Xi Jinping, York

Ukraine Live Updates: Putin Says the U.S. Wants to Push Russia into War

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ImagePrime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, left, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia held a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, left, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia held a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday.Credit…Pool photo by Yuri Kochetkov

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin said on Tuesday that the United States was trying to pull Russia into an armed conflict over Ukraine that Russia did not want, cautioning that the West had not yet satisfied Russia’s demands for a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe but that he hoped “dialogue will be continued.”

Mr. Putin accused the United States of trying to goad his government into launching a conflict, in order to create a pretext for tougher Western sanctions against Russia.

“Their most important task is to contain Russia’s development,” he said of the United States, repeating one of his frequent talking points. “Ukraine is just an instrument of achieving this goal. It can be done in different ways, such as pulling us into some armed conflict and then forcing their allies in Europe to enact those harsh sanctions against us that are being discussed today in the United States.”

His comments, at a news conference in Moscow with Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, marked the first since December that Mr. Putin had spoken publicly about a crisis that threatens European security and stability, with a large-scale Russian troop buildup around Ukraine that American officials have warned could be a prelude to an invasion.

The Kremlin has demanded in writing that NATO not expand eastward, guaranteeing that Ukraine will never join the alliance, and that NATO draw down forces in Eastern European countries that were once part of the Soviet Union or part of its orbit. American and European officials have dismissed such demands as non-starters.

Mr. Putin described the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO as an existential threat not just to Russia, but to world peace. He said that a Western-allied Ukraine strengthened with NATO weapons could launch a war against Russia to recapture Crimea — which Russia annexed in 2014, a move unrecognized by the international community — leading to war between Russia and the NATO bloc.

“If we look at all these many questions deeply, seriously, then it becomes clear that in order to avoid such a negative development of the situation — and we want to avoid it — all countries’ interests, including those of Russia, must be truly taken into account, and a way of solving this problem must be found,” Mr. Putin said.

The United States and NATO delivered written responses to Russia’s demands last week. Russia has not yet responded formally, but Mr. Putin said it was clear “that the principal Russian concerns turned out to be ignored.”

Mr. Putin in December threatened that Russia would take unspecified “military-technical” measures if the West did not meet its demands.

He did not repeat those threats on Tuesday, instead sounding a somewhat optimistic note, describing the diplomacy that has been underway. He noted that President Emmanuel Macron of France could soon visit Moscow.

“I hope that eventually we will find this solution though it’s not easy, we understand that,” Mr. Putin said. “But to talk today about what that will be — I am, of course, not ready to do that.”

.

The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters that Russian officials were still drafting a formal response to American security proposals aimed at de-escalating the Ukraine crisis, and that they would be ready as soon as Mr. Putin “sees fit.”

Russia has massed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, and could be preparing for an invasion, U.S. and NATO officials have warned. Mr. Putin and people close to him have said publicly that Ukraine, with its longstanding political and cultural ties to Russia, is not a legitimate country.

Russian officials have denied any plans to attack Ukraine even as Mr. Putin himself kept silent on the matter. Mr. Putin had last addressed the issue on Dec. 23, when he took a combative tone at his annual news conference in response to a British journalist who asked whether he would guarantee that Russia would not invade Ukraine.

“It was the United States that came with its missiles to our home, to the doorstep of our home,” Mr. Putin said. “And you demand from me some guarantees. You should give us guarantees. You! And right away, right now.”





Border with Russian units

KAZAKHSTAN

Russian units

SEA OF

AZOV

Transnistria, a

Russian-backed

breakaway region

of Moldova.

Russia invaded and

annexed the Crimean

Peninsula from

Ukraine in 2014.

Approximate line

separating Ukrainian and

Russian-backed forces near

two breakaway provinces.

Border with

Russian units

Russian

units

Russia annexed

the Crimean

Peninsula from

Ukraine in 2014.

Transnistria, a

Russian-backed

breakaway region

of Moldova.

Approximate line

separating Ukrainian

and Russian-backed

forces.

Amid the mixed messaging, Russia has continued to mass troops around Ukraine, including in Belarus to the north. Russia says the troops gathering in Belarus will be taking part in snap military exercises from Feb. 10-20.

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Filed Under: WORLD Tagged With: AI, Belarus, Eastern Europe, Emmanuel Macron, Europe, France, Government, Hungary, Media, Military, Nato, Russia, Ukraine, United States

Live Updates: U.S. Faces Off With Russia at U.N. as Ukraine Standoff Continues

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Video

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The meeting of the Security Council was requested by the United States in response to Russia’s buildup of military forces along Ukraine’s borders.CreditCredit…Andrew Kelly/Reuters

The United States and Russia engaged in a diplomatic brawl Monday at the U.N. Security Council over the Ukraine crisis, as the Americans accused the Russians of endangering peace by massing troops on Ukraine’s borders while Kremlin diplomats dismissed what they called farcical theatrics and fearmongering.

The meeting of the 15-nation council, requested by the United States last week, represented the highest-profile arena for the two powers to sway world opinion over Ukraine.

The tensions surrounding the former Soviet republic — smoldering since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula nearly eight years ago, and escalating sharply in recent months — have brought U.S.-Russian relations to their lowest point since the Cold War. The meeting adjourned, as expected, with no action taken.

Almost immediately after the meeting of the council convened, the Russians lost a procedural challenge to even holding it. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia of Russia accused the Americans of fomenting “unfounded accusations that we have refuted” and said no Russian troops were in Ukraine, questioning the basic premise of a meeting he described as “megaphone diplomacy.”

The American ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, countered that many private diplomatic meetings had been held about Russia’s military buildup and it was “now time to have a meeting in public.” She asked other members how they would feel “if you had 100,000 troops sitting on your border.”

The council voted to proceed with the meeting, with only Russia and China objecting. Although Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are all veto-wielding permanent members of the council, veto power cannot be used to block a meeting.

“The situation we are facing in Europe is urgent and dangerous,” Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said in her opening remarks. “Russia’s actions strike at the very heart of the U.N. charter.”

The Russian military buildup, she said, reflected “an escalation in a pattern of aggression that we’ve seen from Russia again and again.” While she emphasized American desires for a peaceful outcome, Mrs. Thomas-Greenfield said that if the Russians invaded Ukraine, “none of us will be able to say we didn’t see it coming.”

Mr. Nebenzia, in his remarks, said Russia wanted peace and that the United States and its Western allies had manufactured a nonexistent crisis to drive a wedge between Russia and Ukraine.

He accused his American counterpart of making a “hodgepodge of accusations but no specific facts.” He drew an analogy to the false American evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that preceded the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, adding that “what happened to that country is known to all.”






Armored vehicles

Other military or air installations

Russia has begun moving

troops, armor and advanced

antiaircraft systems into

Belarus, a close ally.

Baranovichi

Around 130,000 Russian troops

have been deployed near the

Ukrainian border.

Asipovichy

Marshala Zhukova

Forces deployed north of

Ukraine could stretch

the country’s forces thin and

threaten its capital, Kyiv.

KAZAKHSTAN

Approximate line

separating Ukrainian and

Russian-backed forces.

Persianovskiy

Nearly 20,000 troops are near

two breakaway provinces, where

Ukraine has been locked in a

grinding war with Russian-backed

separatists since 2014.

Rostov-on-Don

SEA OF AZOV

CASPIAN SEA

Armored vehicles

Other military or air installations

Baranovichi

Around 130,000 Russian troops

have been deployed near the

Ukrainian border.

Asipovichy

Marshala Zhukova

Russia has begun moving

troops, armor and advanced

antiaircraft systems into

Belarus, a close ally.

KAZAKHSTAN

Approximate line

separating Ukrainian and

Russian-backed forces.

Persianovskiy

Nearly 20,000 troops are near two

breakaway provinces, where Ukraine

has been locked in a grinding

war with Russian-backed

separatists since 2014.

Rostov-on-Don

SEA OF AZOV

CASPIAN SEA

Armored vehicles

Other installations

Around 130,000 Russian troops

have been deployed near the

Ukrainian border.

Baranovichi

Asipovichy

Russia has begun moving

troops, armor and advanced

antiaircraft systems into

Belarus, a close ally.

KAZAKHSTAN

Approximate line

separating Ukrainian and

Russian-backed forces.

Persianovskiy

CASPIAN SEA

Rostov-on-Don

SEA OF AZOV

Nearly 20,000 troops are near two

breakaway provinces, where Ukraine

has been locked in a grinding

war with Russian-backed

separatists since 2014.

Other installations

Armored vehicles

Around 130,000 Russian troops

have been deployed near the

Ukrainian border.

Russia has begun moving

troops, armor and advanced

antiaircraft systems into

Belarus, a close ally.

Nearly 20,000 troops are near

two breakaway provinces, where

Ukraine has been locked in a

grinding war with Russian-backed

separatists since 2014.

Other installations

Armored vehicles

Note: Numbers for newly arrived troops to Belarus, parts of Crimea, and western Russia are rough estimates.

Mr. Nebenzia’s remarks reinforced a message that other Kremlin diplomats have sought to project: that the Security Council meeting was a manufactured contretemps over what they call unjustified Western fears, instigated by the United States, that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine. The Russians have also seized on complaints by Ukraine’s president and others that the Americans are needlessly sowing panic.

Mr. Putin, who has not spoken publicly about Ukraine since December, maintained his silence.

His spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters on Monday that Mr. Putin would state his views on the situation “as soon as he determines it to be necessary.”

“I can’t give you an exact date,” Mr. Peskov said. Russian officials continued to maintain they were not at fault for the rising tensions, insisting that the United States was fabricating the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

That was a rare point of common ground with Kyiv, where President Volodymyr Zelensky has also blamed the United States for needlessly sowing “panic” in Ukraine.

Russia has sent more than 100,000 troops to the Ukrainian border in recent weeks, part of an increasingly aggressive posture by Mr. Putin to protect and enlarge what he sees as Russia’s rightful sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. The Pentagon said on Friday that Russia had amassed enough forces to stage a full-scale invasion of Ukraine at a time of its choosing.

The Kremlin has accused the NATO alliance of threatening Russia and has demanded that it never admit Ukraine as a member. The possibility of a diplomatic solution has remained unclear at best.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, will have a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, but there are no plans at the moment to arrange an in-person meeting, Maria V. Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the ministry, said on Monday.

The Biden administration has said it wants a peaceful outcome to the crisis but is preparing for the possibility of what American military commanders have said would be a devastating armed conflict in Ukraine. The administration has vowed to respond with crippling economic sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine.

— Rick Gladstone and Anton Troianovski

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Filed Under: WORLD Tagged With: AI, Antony Blinken, Armor, Belarus, Biden administration, China, Cold war, Eastern Europe, Europe, France, Iraq, Media, Military, Nato, Russia, Stage, State, Ukraine, United States

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