{"id":1295,"date":"2022-03-23T02:15:33","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T02:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/biden-confirms-russia-used-hypersonic-missiles-warns-of-coming-cyberattacks-on-us-march-21-recap-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T02:15:33","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T02:15:33","slug":"biden-confirms-russia-used-hypersonic-missiles-warns-of-coming-cyberattacks-on-us-march-21-recap-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/23\/biden-confirms-russia-used-hypersonic-missiles-warns-of-coming-cyberattacks-on-us-march-21-recap-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden confirms Russia used hypersonic missiles, warns of coming cyberattacks on US: March 21 recap – USA TODAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: This page recaps the news from Ukraine on Monday, March. 21. Follow here for the latest updates and news from Tuesday, March 22, as Russia’s invasion continues<\/a>.<\/em>
President Joe Biden confirmed Russia’s use of hypersonic missiles in Ukraine, warning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “back is against the wall,” which means he could resort to using more severe tactics as the war stretches into another week.
Speaking at the Business Roundtable\u2019s CEO Quarterly Meeting on Monday, Biden said Russia used the fast-flying missiles “because it’s the only thing that they can get through” Ukrainian defenses. He called it a “consequential weapon” that’s “almost impossible to stop.”
“There’s a reason they’re using it,” Biden said.
Russia has said it twice used its Kinzhal aviation missile system to strike targets in Ukraine. Hypersonic missiles can move at five times the speed of sound or more. The Russian military said these missiles are capable of hitting targets at a range of more than 1,200 miles, or roughly the distance from New York City to Kansas City.
Biden also said Putin didn’t anticipate how unified NATO and western allies would be in a global response to his invasion of Ukraine.\u00a0“The more his back is against the wall, the greater severity of the tactics he may employ,” Biden warned.
The president said false-flag maneuvers like accusing the U.S. of housing biological and chemical weapons inside Ukraine — a claim the White House has vehemently denied — could be a pretext to escalate attacks.
“Whenever he starts talking about something he thinks NATO, Ukraine or the United States is about to do, it means he’s getting ready to do it,” said Biden, who\u00a0reiterated a White House warning that Russia may be on the verge of a cyber attack against critical U.S. infrastructure.
“The magnitude of Russia’s cyber capacity is fairly consequential and it’s coming,” he said.
— Courtney Subramanian<\/em>
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Latest developments<\/strong><\/em>
\u25baBoris Romanchenko, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, was killed Friday<\/a> when the building where he lived in Kharkiv, Ukraine, was hit by a Russian projectile, Germany\u2019s Buchenwald concentration camp memorial said.
\u25baPrime ministers Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland and Mark Rutte of The Netherlands on Monday discussed further sanctions on Russia, including banning imports of its\u00a0oil and gas and closing European ports to Russian ships.
\u25baAP video journalist Mstyslav Chernov has\u00a0recounted his harrowing experience\u00a0as the only international journalist, along with AP photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, in besieged Mariupol before fleeing last week.\u00a0\u201cWe were the last journalists in Mariupol. Now there are none,\u201d he said. Read Chernov’s account here.<\/a>
\u25baRussia reopened bond trading on the Moscow exchange Monday for the first time since\u00a0the country invaded Ukraine.\u00a0Stock trading remained closed.
\u25baPresident Joe Biden hosted\u00a0a 58-minute call<\/a> Monday\u00a0with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi\u00a0and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “They discussed their serious concerns about Russia’s brutal tactics in Ukraine, including its attacks on civilians,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
The Russian\u00a0Foreign Ministry said Monday that it had\u00a0summoned the U.S. ambassador to warn that President Joe Biden’s recent remarks have put Russian-American relations on the verge of rupture.
Biden last week described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “war criminal” as Russia’s missile attacks on Ukraine cities intensified. The Foreign Ministry, in a social media post, called the statement and other references to Putin and the Russian invasion “unworthy of a statesman of such high rank.”
The Pentagon said in a statement that it established a phone line with Russian commanders on March 1 to prevent misunderstandings\u00a0over the war. The line gets tested regularly, including Monday, and it works, the Pentagon said in a statement.
Still, the ministry warned\u00a0Ambassador John Sullivan\u00a0that hostile actions taken against Russia would be met with a “decisive and firm rebuff.”
The warning came hours after Ukraine firmly rejected a Russian offer to\u00a0open two safe corridors out of Mariupol in exchange for the city’s surrender as the relentless missile strikes on the battered seaport city stretched deeper into a fourth week.
Russian forces, facing stiff resistance against their invasion of Ukraine, have sought to gain control of cities but can claim few successes thus far. The Kremlin says its “special operation” is going as planned. But a senior Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity Monday, said Russian President Vladimir Putin has not achieved his goals and is relying on bombardment of cities in a \u201cnear-desperate\u201d effort to gain momentum.\u00a0
President Joe Biden warned again Monday that Russia may be preparing to wage cyberattacks against the United States in retaliation for the economic sanctions the U.S. and its NATO allies have levied against Moscow.
Biden said the warning is based on \u201con evolving intelligence\u201d that the Russian government is exploring options for potential cyberattacks. He did not elaborate.
\u201cMy administration will continue to use every tool to deter, disrupt, and if necessary, respond to cyberattacks against critical infrastructure,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cBut the federal government can\u2019t defend against this threat alone.\u201d
Most of the critical infrastructure in the U.S. is owned and operated by the private sector. The Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has been working with organizations to rapidly share information and guidance to help protect their systems and networks, Biden said.
He urged the private sector to \u201charden your cyber defenses\u201d by immediately implementing best practices developed over the past year.
\u2013 Michael Collins<\/em>
European officials are joining U.S. President Joe Biden in accusing Russia of\u00a0committing war crimes in Ukraine, but they fell short of calling for a ban on Russian oil, gas and coal, which Europe purchases at a cost of $1 billion a day<\/a>.
With civilian deaths mounting in the\u00a0besieged Ukrainian port city\u00a0of\u00a0Mariupol, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock highlighted the increase in Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and theaters.\u00a0The \u201ccourts will have to decide, but for me these are clearly war crimes,\u201d Baerbock said.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who chaired a meeting of the bloc\u2019s foreign ministers in Brussels, said that \u201cwhat\u2019s happening in Mariupol is a massive war crime. Destroying everything, bombarding and killing everybody in an indiscriminate manner. This is something awful.\u201d
The yacht of\u00a0sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich was greeted by a group carrying Ukrainian flags with the words \u201cNo War\u201d emblazoned on them upon docking Monday in the resort city of Bodrum in the Turkish Riviera, the Sozcu newspaper reported.
It’s unclear whether\u00a0Abramovich, owner of the British soccer club Chelsea, was aboard or if the yacht was moved to Turkey to avoid sanctions.\u00a0Last week, the European Union imposed sanctions on Abramovich as it updated a list of individuals facing asset freeze and travel bans over their close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Turkey, a member of NATO, has criticized the Russian invasion of Ukraine but has not joined other countries in imposing sanctions as it\u00a0positions itself as a neutral party trying to mediate.
Russian forces appear to be running short of precision-guided weapons, said a senior Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity Monday. The so-called “smart bombs”\u00a0use lasers and satellites to guide them to their target while the Russians increasingly are relying on \u201cdumb bombs\u201d \u2013 less precise weapons that put civilians at greater risk, the official\u00a0said.
Russian commanders continue to have problems communicating and directing their forces in Ukraine, the official said. Commanders are using unsecured communication lines that can be intercepted.\u00a0Ukrainian airspace remains contested, and Russian pilots are not flying far or often into Ukraine, fearing the air-defense systems \u2013 including long-range and shoulder-fired missiles that are being used with \u201cgreat dexterity,” the official said.
Russia\u2019s\u00a0targeting of civilian areas could be an attempt to force Ukraine to make concessions in negotiations, the official said. In Ukraine, Parliament Member Dmytro Gurin said the Russian are trying to starve Mariupol to strengthen their positions in cease-fire talks.
\u201cRussians don\u2019t open humanitarian corridors, they don\u2019t let humanitarian convoys enter the city, and we clearly see now that the goal of the Russians is to start to (create) hunger (in the city) to enforce their position in the diplomatic process,” Gurin said. EU\u00a0foreign policy chief Josep Borrell accused Russia of committing war crimes for the \u201cindiscriminate\u201d killings<\/a> in Mariupol.\u00a0
Facebook and Instagram, which were already blocked in Russia along with foreign media websites, have been banned from the country, preventing parent company Meta from opening offices and doing business there.
The Tverskoy District Court in Moscow fulfilled a request from prosecutors to outlaw Meta Platforms Inc. and banned Facebook and Instagram for what they called \u201cextremist activities.\u201d The prosecutors have accused the social media platforms of ignoring government requests to remove what they described as fake news about the Russian war in Ukraine and calls for protests in Russia.
The popular messaging service\u00a0WhatsApp, also owned by Meta, has not been banned.
Mariupol is not the only city to\u00a0have felt Russia’s wrath, and about a quarter of Ukraine’s population has been displaced because of the violence, according to the\u00a0United Nations.\u00a0<\/a>Ukraine’s population has already been declining for years,<\/a>\u00a0dropping from over 50 million in the 1990s to 43 million in 2022.
Now, more than 10 million more Ukrainians \u2013\u00a0or roughly 25%\u00a0\u2013\u00a0have either been displaced inside their country or have fled as\u00a0refugees to other nations as Russian forces continue their besiegement of residential communities.
Britain is accusing Russia of using\u00a0an impostor to pose\u00a0as the prime minister of Ukraine and calling\u00a0two government ministers. Home Secretary Priti Patel and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said they were called, and Wallace said he briefly spoke with the impostor. Prime Minister Boris Johnson\u2019s spokesman, Max Blain, said the government is concerned Russia will use doctored versions of the calls for it disinformation campaign.
“He posed several misleading questions and after becoming suspicious I terminated the call,” Wallace said. “No amount of Russian disinformation, distortion and dirty tricks can distract from Russia\u2019s human rights abuses and illegal invasion of Ukraine. A desperate attempt.”
Patel called the effort a “pathetic attempt at such difficult times to divide us.”
Actor Mila Kunis\u00a0and husband\u00a0Ashton Kutcher have raised $35 million in humanitarian relief<\/a> for the people of Ukraine through their fundraiser on\u00a0GoFundMe<\/a>.\u00a0Kunis, who was born in Ukraine, and Kutcher exceeded their initial fundraising goal of $30 million thanks to the donations of more than 70,000 people.
“We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the support, and while this is far from a solve of the problem, our collective effort will provide a softer landing for so many people as they forge ahead into their future of uncertainty,” Kunis said in a\u00a0video.
Freight forwarder Flexport and nonprofit Airbnb.org\u00a0will facilitate\u00a0aid efforts by “transporting humanitarian aid to known NGOs on the ground”\u00a0and “providing free, short-term housing to up to 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine,” Kunis and Kutcher said.\u00a0\u00a0
Kunis, 38, was born in Chernivtsi, a southwestern Ukraine city of about 250,000 people, in 1983. Her\u00a0family emigrated to the United States in 1991.
\u2013 Rasha Ali<\/em>
The Chinese Red Cross will provide Ukraine with\u00a0another $1.57 million in\u00a0humanitarian aid, Chinese officials said Monday.\u00a0The agency has provided Ukraine with at least three batches of humanitarian supplies, including milk powder and quilts for children, in recent weeks, said Zhang Jun, China’s representative to the U.N.
The U.S. has urged China to join the West in sanctions against Russia aimed at pressuring President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. China has refused to condemn Russia or refer to its offensive as an invasion. Chinese officials say\u00a0NATO expansion pressured\u00a0Russia into striking\u00a0Ukraine last month.
Russian shelling destroyed a shopping center near the city center of Kyiv, killing eight people and injuring at least one, according to emergency officials. The force of the blasts\u00a0shattered every window in a neighboring\u00a0high-rise in the densely populated Podil district.
Despite a \u201dcontinued lack of progress\u201d to take the capital, Kyiv remains Russia\u2019s primary military objective, according to\u00a0British military officials.<\/a>\u00a0Heavy fighting continues north of the city in north-central Ukraine, but “the bulk” of Russian forces remain more than 15 miles from the center of Kyiv, Britain\u2019s Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update.\u00a0
\u201cRussian forces advancing on the city from the north-east have stalled,\u201d the update reads. \u201cForces advancing from the direction of Hostomel to the north-west have been repulsed by fierce Ukrainian resistance.”
The ministry says Russia will likely prioritize attempts to encircle the city in the coming weeks.\u00a0
\u2013\u00a0Bailey Schulz<\/em>
President Joe Biden will travel to Poland<\/a> this week after Thursday meetings with NATO, G7\u00a0and EU\u00a0leaders in Brussels.\u00a0On Friday, Biden will travel to Warsaw, where he will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda to discuss how the U.S. and its allies are “responding\u00a0to the humanitarian and human rights crisis that Russia\u2019s unjustified and unprovoked war on Ukraine has created,” a White House statement read.\u00a0
Over 2 million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring Poland as refugees, according to the United Nations.\u00a0<\/a>
Biden’s trip to Europe will not include a stop in Ukraine,\u00a0White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki tweeted Sunday.
\u2013 Celina Tebor<\/em>
After Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded for help and a stronger stance<\/a> against Russia’s attack from Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett\u00a0said the country is managing its involvement with Ukraine and Russia \u201cin a sensitive, generous and responsible way while balancing various and complex considerations.”
Israel has condemned Russia\u2019s invasion\u00a0but has refrained from taking action that would anger Moscow out of concern of\u00a0jeopardizing its military coordination in neighboring Syria, according to the Associated Press.\u00a0
In a\u00a0video address to the Israeli parliament Sunday, Zelenskyy urged the lawmakers to take action against Russia and accused Russian\u00a0President Vladimir Putin of trying to carry out a \u201cfinal solution\u201d against Ukraine. The term was used by Nazi Germany for its genocide of some 6 million Jews during World War II.
\u201cOur people are now wandering in the world, seeking security as you once did,\u201d said Zelenskyy, who is Jewish.
\u2013 Bailey Schulz<\/em>
New Zealand plans to provide\u00a0$5 million New Zealand dollars ($3.5 million) in non-lethal military assistance<\/a>\u00a0to support Ukraine. Funds will primarily go toward the NATO Trust Fund, which provides fuel, military rations, first aid kits and more to Ukraine.\u00a0\u00a0
\u201cThis is the first time New Zealand has provided direct funding to a third party organization for non-lethal military assistance of this kind,\u201d Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement. “By contributing directly to the NATO Trust Fund, Ukrainian forces on the ground can benefit from the additional assistance immediately.”
New Zealand will also make a variety of surplus defense equipment available to share with Ukraine, including body armor, helmets and vests.
\u2013\u00a0Bailey Schulz<\/em>
Deputy national security adviser Daleep Singh said Sunday the U.S. has the ability to broaden\u00a0its sanctions against Russia<\/a>.\u00a0
\u201c(We can) take the measures, take the sanctions we’ve already applied, apply them in more targets. Apply them to more sectors,\u201d Singh told CBS’ 60 Minutes.\u00a0\u201cMore banks, more sectors that we haven’t touched.\u201d
\u201cIt’s mostly about oil and gas, but there are other sectors,\u00a0too,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t want to specify them, but I think (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would know what those are.\u201d
When asked what Putin would need to do to have sanctions lifted, Singh said “we’re\u00a0nowhere near that point.”
\u201cThe first thing (Putin) has to do is to stop a reckless and barbaric attack on the civilians of Ukraine,” he said.\u00a0“That’s not happening.\u201d
\u2013\u00a0Bailey Schulz<\/em>
Following weeks of Russian forces besieging\u00a0residential\u00a0cities and the Ukrainian military\u00a0attempting\u00a0to sever supply lines, Western governments and analysts say Vladimir Putin’s\u00a0invasion of Ukraine is starting to become\u00a0a war of attrition. But what does that mean?
Attrition warfare refers to wearing down an opponent to the point of exhaustion. One of the most well-known\u00a0examples of a war of attrition was World War I, which consisted of lengthy and prolonged battles, largely fought\u00a0in trenches.\u00a0
Britain\u2019s defense intelligence chief said last week Russia was shifting to a \u201dstrategy of attrition\u201d\u00a0after unexpected pushback from Ukrainian forces and failure to capture its largest cities.\u00a0Chief of Defense Intelligence Lt. Gen. Jim Hockenhull said Russian forces’ new strategy \u201cwill involve the reckless and indiscriminate use of firepower. This will result in increased civilian casualties, destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure and intensify the humanitarian crisis.\u201d
Mariupol’s city council accused the Russian military<\/a> of bombing\u00a0an art school Sunday where about 400 people had taken shelter. Days earlier, Russian forces\u00a0bombed a theater in the strategic port city<\/a> where civilians took shelter.
\u2013\u00a0Celina Tebor<\/em>
More coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine<\/strong>
Contributing: Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n

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Editor’s note: This page recaps the news from Ukraine on Monday, March. 21. Follow here for the latest updates and news from Tuesday, March 22, as Russia’s invasion continues.President Joe Biden confirmed Russia’s use of hypersonic missiles in Ukraine, warning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “back is against the wall,” which means he could resort to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}