{"id":1400,"date":"2022-03-23T14:40:39","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T14:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/ukraine-fighting-rages-as-biden-warns-of-chemical-attacks-los-angeles-times\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T14:40:39","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T14:40:39","slug":"ukraine-fighting-rages-as-biden-warns-of-chemical-attacks-los-angeles-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/23\/ukraine-fighting-rages-as-biden-warns-of-chemical-attacks-los-angeles-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine fighting rages as Biden warns of chemical attacks – Los Angeles Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian forces defending the capital, Kyiv, managed to wrest back control of a strategic outlying town that Russian troops had earlier captured, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday, but invading troops were reported to have breached the besieged port city of Mariupol, scene of some of the war\u2019s most harrowing attacks<\/a> on civilians.
Russia\u2019s massive but seemingly foundering invasion of its western neighbor lurched toward the beginning of a second month, as Western officials redoubled warnings that an increasingly frustrated Russian President Vladimir Putin might resort to the use of chemical or other unconventional weapons<\/a>. That concern was expected to be prominently raised at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit Thursday, with President Biden in attendance.
In Russia, where Putin has recently imposed some of the most repressive measures<\/a> of his more than two decades in power, the country\u2019s premier opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, was sentenced to nine more years in prison on charges of fraud and contempt of court. Navalny responded by calling online for his compatriots to topple Putin, whom he described as a \u201ctoad sitting on an oil pipe.\u201d<\/a>
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, sought to frame the Russian attack as a menace that extends well beyond Ukraine\u2019s borders. In a speech to the Italian Parliament \u2014 the latest in a series of stirring virtual addresses<\/a> to Western lawmakers \u2014 he described Ukraine as a vital gateway by which \u201cthey mean to enter Europe.\u201d
International appeals for a halt to the fighting have so far been fruitless, but U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a forceful call Tuesday, branding the war \u201cmorally unacceptable, politically indefensible and militarily nonsensical.\u201d Guterres urged serious negotiations, though Russia again rebuffed Zelensky\u2019s call for direct talks with Putin.
In Mariupol, where satellite photos and accounts from residents who have escaped painted a picture of unending destruction<\/a>, desperate rescue attempts continued Tuesday. Officials have said survivors of missile attacks, including strikes on a theater and an art school that together sheltered more than 1,400 people, have been trapped under rubble for days.
In Washington, a senior U.S. Defense official told reporters Tuesday that Russian forces were inside the devastated city, whose prewar population of nearly 450,000 has dwindled to about a quarter of that number, according to Ukrainian officials. But the city remained in Ukrainian hands despite new bombardment Tuesday, local officials said.
Seizing control of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, would give Russia a coveted land bridge to the Crimean peninsula, which it grabbed and illegally annexed eight years ago.<\/p>\n

The push-and-pull of combat continued elsewhere, with outgunned Ukrainian forces at times trying counteroffensives and at times being driven back. Ukraine reported Tuesday that its forces had recaptured a western Kyiv suburb, Makariv, giving them control of a major access point to the capital and allowing them to block Russian advances from the northwest.
At the same time, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Russian troops had partially taken other northwestern Kyiv suburbs, including Bucha and Hostomel. In an overnight video address, Zelensky said that Russia also launched strikes in Zaporizhzhia in the south, leaving four children hospitalized.
Rescue crews were in Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv, where the Ukrainian emergency service said 13 residential buildings were destroyed or damaged by shelling. The mayor of Boryspil, a city 25 miles east of Kyiv, called on residents to abandon their homes because of the violence.
In the south, local authorities reported blasts in two towns, Zelenodolsk and Mala Kostromka, though it was not known whether there were casualties.
\u201cThe enemy is slowly trying to move, to go on the offensive somewhere,\u201d Zelensky said.
World & Nation<\/a>
Global outrage grows over Putin\u2019s merciless attacks in Ukraine<\/a>
Fresh assaults and Russia\u2019s unmet demand that Mariupol surrender came amid fears that the invasion of Ukraine has become grisly war of attrition<\/p>\n

Entertainment & Arts<\/a>
A former Bolshoi dancer is helping young dancers flee Ukraine, one ballet school at a time<\/a>
The Russian invasion put a stop to the student ballet scholarship competition Youth America Grand Prix\u2019s event in Kyiv. The organization has since helped more than 80 young Ukrainian dancers escape the conflict by placing them in schools across Europe.<\/p>\n

The continued assault on Ukrainian cities came as international authorities said Russia was resorting to more destructive weapons<\/a>. U.S. officials say Russia has launched hypersonic missiles, which travel at up to 15 times the speed of sound.
The Pentagon suggested Tuesday that the use of hypersonic missiles might be due to a lack of available alternatives. Calling the missile a \u201csledgehammer,\u201d Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said its use \u201ccould very well be tied to inventory\u201d and to \u201cperformance problems that they\u2019re having with respect to precision-guided munitions.\u201d
Putin has repeatedly made unfounded allegations that Ukraine is developing chemical weapons with U.S. assistance. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., on Tuesday called those claims \u201cludicrous\u201d and warned they were \u201ca precursor for Russia\u2019s plans to use chemical weapons\u201d itself. Biden voiced similar concerns a day earlier. <\/p>\n

The war has sent more than 3.5 million people fleeing Ukraine and made air-raid sirens, rubble and fires part of everyday life in Kyiv and other cities. In addition to refugees<\/a> who have left for such countries as Poland and Romania, more than 6.5 million people are internally displaced in Ukraine, according to the U.N. \u2014 meaning that nearly 1 of every 4 residents has been displaced inside or outside the country.
The fighting shows little sign of stopping even as international intelligence groups and Western officials said Ukrainians were largely fending off Russian advances and even notching some gains.
The U.S. is \u201cstarting to see indications that [Ukraine is] now able and willing to take back territory that the Russians have taken,\u201d said the senior U.S. Defense official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
Weeks after the invasion was launched Feb. 24, the official said there was no indication Russia was managing to resupply its troops, and some soldiers were even suffering from frostbite because they were not given the right cold-weather gear.
The British Defense Ministry, in an analysis released Tuesday, said Russian forces outside Mariupol and elsewhere \u201chave endured yet another day of limited progress with most forces largely stalled in place.\u201d
World & Nation<\/a>
Unforgettable images from the war in Ukraine<\/a>
The Times\u2019 Marcus Yam, no stranger to war photography, gives a first-person account from Ukraine.<\/p>\n

In another assessment, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said that Russia was sending \u201clow-quality\u201d and \u201clow-readiness\u201d reserve troops in the face of losses.
Accurate figures on military deaths are hard to come by. Numbers released this month by the Ukrainian government said that at least 1,300 of its soldiers have died, while Russia claims the number is higher. Russia has put its own troop losses at about 500, but on Monday, Komsomolskaya Pravda, a pro-Kremlin news site, said that more than 9,800 Russian soldiers had died. It later deleted the information and said it had been hacked.
The United Nations says more than 900 civilians are dead from the war. The actual number is probably much higher; Mariupol officials say that more than 3,000 people in their city alone have been killed. <\/p>\n

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World & Nation<\/a>
Full coverage of the war in Ukraine<\/a>
Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine is causing a European refugee crisis on a scale not seen since World War II and raising fears of a return to Cold War-era dynamics.<\/p>\n

Despite near-daily Russian strikes on Ukrainian population centers, the loss of territory to Russian forces in the east and south and millions of lives upended by the fighting, government officials have portrayed Ukraine as positioned to eventually prevail.
\u201c27th day of the war. Ukraine is combat-ready and logistically mature. It is bad that the war started in Ukraine, but we have proved that Ukraine is the most mobilized country,\u201d Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted Tuesday.
Some areas of Ukraine have remained relatively safe. In Lviv, a western city that\u2019s become a stopping point for refugees traveling to Poland, sirens sound each day, but populated areas have not been attacked. The closest hit has been on an unoccupied aircraft repair center<\/a> on the city outskirts last week.<\/p>\n

World & Nation<\/a>
Analysis: Trump delayed weapons to Ukraine and praised Putin. Did that trigger war?<\/a>
The former president attempted to extort Zelensky for political favors and made Ukraine a pawn. Putin took note.<\/p>\n

Despite Russian military setbacks \u2014 or perhaps because of them \u2014 the Kremlin again threw cold water on Zelensky\u2019s request for a meeting with Putin, saying that \u201cfrom the Ukrainian side,\u201d there had not been sufficient progress to merit such an encounter.
Talks are moving \u201cmuch more slowly and less substantively than we would like,\u201d Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday, according to Russian state-backed news agency Tass.
Zelensky said last week that he accepts that NATO membership is unlikely. Russia has listed nixing Ukraine\u2019s NATO aspirations as one of several non-negotiable demands.
Politics<\/a>
U.S. supports Zelensky\u2019s efforts to negotiate with Putin<\/a>
Experts warn the war in Ukraine is dangerously close to reaching a stalemate, which would further devastate Ukrainian cities and lead to more civilian casualties. <\/p>\n

The Ukrainian leader has also suggested that relinquishing Ukrainian claims to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and Donbas, a southeastern region that\u2019s home to a pro-Russia separatist movement, were also up for discussion. But he added that any \u201chistoric\u201d changes would require a national referendum.
McDonnell reported from Lviv, Kaleem from London and King from Washington. Times staff writer Sarah D. Wire in Washington contributed to this report. <\/i>
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Foreign correspondent Patrick J. McDonnell is the Los Angeles Times Mexico City bureau chief and previously headed Times bureaus in Beirut, Buenos Aires and Baghdad. A native of the Bronx, McDonnell is a graduate of Columbia\u2019s Graduate School of Journalism and was a Nieman fellow at Harvard.<\/p>\n

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Jaweed Kaleem is a national correspondent at the Los Angeles Times, where he writes about the people and places that make up the U.S. outside of California. His journalism frequently explores religion, race, politics, the environment and cultural debates.
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Laura King is a Washington, D.C.-based reporter for the Los Angeles Times. A member of the Foreign\/National staff, she primarily covers foreign affairs. She previously served as bureau chief in Jerusalem, Kabul and Cairo.
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Ukrainian forces defending the capital, Kyiv, managed to wrest back control of a strategic outlying town that Russian troops had earlier captured, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday, but invading troops were reported to have breached the besieged port city of Mariupol, scene of some of the war\u2019s most harrowing attacks on civilians.Russia\u2019s massive but seemingly foundering […]<\/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\/1400"}],"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=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}