The Kremlin accused Washington of disinformation Wednesday, while it conducted exercises to simulate the use of tactical nuclear weapons in a likely warning to the West over Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke Friday about the fighting around Kharkiv and renewed criticism of his Western backers, saying they had left his country in a “nonsense situation.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his troops had stabilized the situation in the northeastern Kharkiv region and that the Russians had pushed no more than 6 miles into Ukrainian territory.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two-day state visit is a show of unity with Beijing as the U.S. pressures Chinese leader Xi Jinping to influence him to end the conflict.
Many Ukrainians felt it inappropriate that the secretary of state was rocking out at all, given that, in their view, Washington’s tardiness is largely to blame for their struggles on the battlefield against Russia.
Even as Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the country to reassure it of Washington’s support, Ukraine was dealt new setbacks by the advancing Russian military in the northeast.
The arrest of Yuri Kuznetsov signals a widening of the biggest government corruption scandal in years, two days after President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly removed Sergei Shoigu from the post of defense minister.