Kremlin says the United States offering Patriot missile system to Ukraine and a lack of discussions on peace talks is evidence the US was fighting a “proxy war” with Russia.
Russian defence minister, Sergey Shoigu, visits armed forces fighting in Ukraine, the RIA news agency cited the defence ministry as saying.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the US Congress that aid to Ukraine was an investment in democracy and “not charity”.
The US announced $1.85bn in additional military assistance for Ukraine, including a transfer of the Patriot missile systemThe Kremlin says US supplies of Patriot missile systems to Ukraine, announced during Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington, DC on Wednesday, will not contribute to ending the conflict and would not prevent Russia from achieving its goals.
At least 10,300 new graves have emerged in and around Mariupol, most in the Staryi Krym cemetery, according to the estimates made by the Associated Press.
The death toll might run three times higher than an early estimate of at least 25,000 as often more than one set of human remains per grave have been found.
The former Ukrainian city has also hollowed out, with Russian plans to demolish well over 50,000 homes, the AP calculated.
AP analysed satellite imagery from early March through December, noting sections where the earth had been disturbed. It measured each grid section where the cemetery had been expanded and calculated the total space occupied by new graves to be more than 51,500 square metres’
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the expansion of Western weapon supplies to Ukraine has led to “an aggravation of the conflict and, in fact, does not bode well for Ukraine”.
The comments were an official Russian reaction to Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington and the announcement of new US military aid to Ukraine.
Biden said the US and Ukraine would continue to project a “united defence” as Russia wages a “brutal assault on Ukraine’s right to exist as a nation”.
In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there had been no signs for peace talks during Zelenskyy’s visit and that this was evidence that the United States was fighting a proxy war with Russia “to the last Ukrainian”.
The Russian Defence Ministry says Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu visited army units fighting in Ukraine, Russian news agency RIA reported
RIA cited the ministry as saying that Shoigu had visited Russian units deployed to the “area of the special military operation”, using Moscow’s term for the conflict in Ukraine.
It did not specify where the visit took place.Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, says the US has “finally pinpointed the baseline” that Russia must lose the war.
He tweeted: “The United States has finally pinpointed the baseline. 1. Russia must lose. 2. No “territory in exchange for pseudo/world” compromises. 3. Ukraine will receive all necessary military aid. As much as possible. 4. No one cares about Russia’s “talk to us” hysteria…”