Russian Invasion of UkraineWhat Happened on Day 62 of the War in Ukraine

Officials from over 40 countries planned arms shipments, and Germany, in a policy reversal, pledged heavy weapons for Ukraine. Russia is cutting off natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.

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A crater from a Russian bomb on Tuesday in the village of Novo Yakovlevka in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Follow our live news updates on the Russia-Ukraine war.

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Here’s the latest on the war in Ukraine.

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The funeral for Ehor Kihitov, a Ukrainian soldier who was killed in an artillery strike, in Lviv on Tuesday.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — The United States marshaled 40 allies on Tuesday to furnish Ukraine with long-term military aid in what could become a protracted battle against the Russian invasion, and Germany said it would send dozens of armored antiaircraft vehicles. It was a major policy shift for a country that had wavered over fear of provoking Russia.

The announcement by Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and one of Russia’s most important Western trading partners, was among many signals on Tuesday pointing to further escalation in the war and disappointment for diplomacy.

Germany’s shift on weapons also was seen as a strong affirmation of a toughened message by the Biden administration, which has said it wants to see Russia not only defeated in Ukraine but seriously weakened from the conflict that President Vladimir V. Putin began two months ago.

The increasing flow of Western weapons into Ukraine — including howitzers, armed drones, tanks and ammunition — also amounted to another sign that a war Mr. Putin had expected would divide his Western adversaries had instead drawn them much closer together.

“Putin never imagined that the world would rally behind Ukraine so swiftly and surely,” the American defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, said on Tuesday to uniformed and civilian officials at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany, where he convened defense officials from 40 allied countries.

“Nobody is fooled” by Mr. Putin’s “phony claims on Donbas,” Mr. Austin said, referring to the eastern region of Ukraine, where Russia recently refocused its assaults. “Russia’s invasion is indefensible and so are Russian atrocities,” he said.

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Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, center, at the Ukraine Security Consultative Group meeting in Ramstein, Germany, on Tuesday.Credit...Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said on Tuesday that the influx of heavy weapons from Western countries was effectively pushing Ukraine to sabotage peace talks with Moscow, which have shown no concrete signs of progress.

“They will continue that line by filling Ukraine with weapons,” Mr. Lavrov said after meeting in Moscow with the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, who was undertaking his most active effort yet at diplomacy to halt the war. “If that continues, negotiations won’t yield any result.”

On Monday, Mr. Lavrov resurrected the specter of nuclear war, as Mr. Putin has done at least twice before. Mr. Lavrov said that while such a possibility would be “unacceptable” to Russia, the risks had increased because NATO had “engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy.”

“The risks are quite considerable,” he said in an interview with Channel One, Russia’s state-run TV network.

“I don’t want them to be blown out of proportion,” he said. But “the danger is serious, real — it must not be underestimated.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, called Mr. Lavrov’s remarks a sign that “Moscow senses defeat in Ukraine.” John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, called them “obviously unhelpful, not constructive.”

“A nuclear war cannot be won and it shouldn’t be fought,” he said. “There’s no reason for the current conflict in Ukraine to get to that level at all.”

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Smoke billowing after a Russian shelling in the Luhansk Region of Ukraine, on Tuesday.Credit...Serhii Nuzhnenko/Reuters

Mr. Austin said the defense officials who had gathered at Ramstein Air Base — from Australia, Belgium, Britain, Italy, Israel and other countries — had agreed to form what he called the Ukraine Contact Group and to meet monthly to ensure they “strengthen Ukraine’s military for the long haul.”

“We are going to keep moving heaven and earth,” to bolster the Ukrainian military, Mr. Austin said.

Germany’s defense minister, Christine Lambrecht, announced at the meeting that Berlin would send Ukraine up to 50 armed vehicles, called Flakpanzer Gepard, designed to shoot down aircraft but also fire at targets on the ground.

Although no longer used by Germany, they have been acquired by Jordan, Qatar, Romania and Brazil, where they have been deployed to defend soccer stadiums from potential drone attacks during international tournaments, according to the manufacturer, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.

The German government had previously cited a range of reasons to avoid shipping such heavy arms to Ukraine, including that none were readily available, that training Ukrainian soldiers to operate them was time-consuming and that Russia could be provoked into a wider conflict.

But German officials changed course under growing pressure from the conservative opposition in Berlin, and from members of the governing coalition. Germany has also supplied Ukraine with shoulder-launched antitank rockets and surface-to-air defensive missiles, some from old East German stockpiles.

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Waiting for humanitarian aid in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Monday.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who traveled with Mr. Austin to Ukraine this past weekend, affirmed on Tuesday that the United States would support the Ukrainian military in pushing Russian forces out of eastern Ukraine if that is what President Volodymyr Zelensky aims to do.

“If that is how they define their objectives as a sovereign, democratic, independent country, that’s what we’ll support,” Mr. Blinken said at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

After meeting with Mr. Putin in the Kremlin, Mr. Guterres said he had secured an agreement “in principle” to allow the United Nations and the Red Cross to evacuate civilians from a sprawling steel plant besieged by Russia in the southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol, where they have been holed up for days with Ukrainian fighters. But there was no evidence that the meeting had produced any advances in diplomacy to end the war.

Before the meeting, Mr. Putin asserted that Mr. Guterres had been “misled” about the situation in Mariupol, and he insisted that Russia had been operating workable humanitarian corridors out of the city — an assertion denied by Ukrainian officials, who say their attempts to ferry civilians out of the city have collapsed in the face of threats by Russian forces.

Mr. Putin told Mr. Guterres that he hoped continuing peace talks with Ukraine would bring “some positive result,” according to the Kremlin. But Mr. Putin said Russia would not sign a security guarantee agreement with Ukraine without a resolution to the territorial questions in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and in Donbas, where Russia has recognized two separatist regions as independent.

In an escalation of the East-West economic conflict from the war, Poland’s state-owned gas company said on Tuesday that Russia’s state gas company had announced the “complete suspension” of natural gas deliveries to Poland through a major pipeline.

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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia meets with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres at the Kremlin on Tuesday.Credit...Vladimir Astapkovich/Sputnik, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Poland, a NATO member and key conduit for Western arms into Ukraine, gets more than 45 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and cutting off that supply could impair its ability to heat homes and run businesses.

In addition to spreading suffering and death across Ukraine, the invasion has set off the largest exodus of European refugees since World War II.

More than five million people, 90 percent of them women and children, have already left Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, according to the United Nations. A further 7.7 million have been driven from their homes by the conflict, but remain in the country.

On Tuesday, the United Nations projected that the number of refugees could rise to 8.3 million by year’s end, and it asked donors for an additional $1.25 billion to finance soaring humanitarian needs in Ukraine.

In another worrisome sign of possible spillover from the war, explosions rattled Transnistria, a small Moscow-backed breakaway republic in Ukraine’s southwest neighbor, Moldova, for the second consecutive day.

It remained unclear who was behind the explosions. The authorities in Transnistria blamed Ukraine, while Ukraine accused Russia of having orchestrated the blasts.

Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, told reporters that there were “tensions between different forces within the regions, interested in destabilizing the situation.”

At least 10,000 Russian and Russia-supported troops are stationed in Transnistria, just 25 miles from Ukraine’s major port, Odesa. Western officials have expressed concerns that Mr. Putin might create a pretext to order more troops into the territory, just as he did before Russian forces moved into Crimea and Donbas.

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A Ukrainian serviceman examines a Russian missile's booster stage that fell in a field in Bohodarove, eastern Ukraine, on Monday.Credit...Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

John Ismay reported from Ramstein Air Base, Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin and Michael Levenson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Ivan Nechepurenko from Tblisi, Georgia, Michael Schwirtz from Orikhiv, Ukraine, Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva, Michael Crowley and Edward Wong from Washington, Matthew Mpoke Bigg from London and Cora Engelbrecht from Krakow, Poland.

A correction was made on 
May 5, 2022

An earlier version of this article described incorrectly the Russian troops in Transnistria. There are at least about 10,000 Russian and Russia-backed troops stationed there, not 12,000 Russian troops.

How we handle corrections

Victoria Kim
April 26, 2022, 10:27 p.m. ET

Reporting from Seoul

Explosions were heard overnight in Belgorod, Russia, less than 20 miles from the Ukrainian border, the regional governor said on Telegram. An ammunition depot was on fire, but no homes had been hit and there were no civilian casualties, said the governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, citing preliminary information.

Anushka Patil
April 26, 2022, 9:10 p.m. ET

Americans’ support for admitting refugees is at a record high, Gallup finds.

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A pro-Ukrainian demonstration outside the White House this month.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

The American public’s support for admitting Ukrainian refugees is higher than Gallup has found in any refugee situation since 1939, the firm said on Tuesday.

Gallup reported the record high after its new poll found that 78 percent of adults in the United States approve of allowing up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees into the country.

The results underscore stark differences in Americans’ view of various refugee crises, particularly given the number of Ukrainian refugees in question. When Americans were asked about admitting at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2015, for example, Gallup found that just 37 percent approved.

Racial bias plays an undeniable role in differing welcomes to refugees from different countries, migration experts have said. Since the start of Russia’s invasion, there have been several instances of white government officials and journalists expressing shock at the “unthinkable” happening in Europe, to people with “blue eyes and blonde hair,” who seem “so like us.”

American support for Ukrainian refugees has been reflected in other polls throughout the war, though not at the scale that Gallup’s found.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released in early March found that 74 percent of Americans believed the country should allow Ukrainian refugees in. Later that month, the Pew Research Center reported that 69 percent of Americans favored admitting thousands of Ukrainians.

President Biden bowed to domestic and international pressure and declared on March 24 that the United States would accept up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. The Gallup poll was conducted after that, from April 1 to 19, through phone interviews with a random sample of 1,018 adults. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

On Monday, the Biden administration rolled out one piece of that initiative — a program that allows Americans to sponsor Ukrainian refugees if they are able to provide financial support such as room and board or direct payments for necessary expenses.

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Monika Pronczuk
April 26, 2022, 4:39 p.m. ET

Explosions rattle a breakaway region in Moldova, raising fears of a broader war.

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The border in Moldova of the breakaway region of Transnistria, which was hit with a series of explosions on Monday and Tuesday.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times

BRUSSELS — A series of explosions on Monday and Tuesday has rattled Transnistria, a small breakaway region within Moldova and bordering Ukraine, ramping up fears that the war next door could spill over into neighboring countries and swell into a wider conflict.

It remained unclear on Tuesday who was behind the attacks in Transnistria, a self-declared Republic allied with — and heavily dependent on — Russia. Local authorities there blamed Ukraine, while Ukraine accused Russia of orchestrating the blasts as a pretext for further aggression.

The Ukrainian military said Tuesday that Russian troops stationed in Transnistria had been put on high alert. Some Ukrainians have voiced fears that with Russia already invading their country from the east, south and north, they could add a new front from Transnistria, attacking from the west, as well.

Moldova, a former Soviet republic, said the explosions were still under investigation, though one interior ministry official said some initial evidence suggested Russian involvement.

As the Soviet Union dissolved in the early 1990s, heavily armed separatists in Transnistria, which has a sizable minority of Russian speakers, fought to break away from Moldova. With Russian backing, they effectively won independence, but Transnistria is not formally recognized internationally.

There are at least 10,000 Russian and Russia-backed troops stationed in Transnistria, which reached to within 25 miles of Odesa, Ukraine’s chief port and third-largest city. Odesa is potentially a major target in Moscow’s stalled push to seize Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.

A Russian general said last week that Russia intended to take control of a swath of land extending not just to Crimea, the peninsula it seized from Ukraine in 2014, but all the way to Transnistria. But it was not clear that his statement reflected Kremlin policy.

The attacks in Transnistria were carried out against empty or unused buildings during a holiday, and there were no casualties, said Moldova’s deputy interior minister, Sergiu Diaconu. He said explosions appeared to be an attempt to destabilize the country, and possibly serve as an excuse for a military response by Russia, not a serious bid to do harm.

In addition, Mr. Diaconu said, the grenades that were used are produced by Russia and are only used by the armies of Russia, Transnistria and Gabon. He said of the attackers, “I don’t think these were the Gabonese.”

Still, Moldovan authorities did not accuse Moscow of being behind the explosions. The country’s president, Maia Sandu, did not mention Russia when asked on Tuesday about the attacks, saying only that there were “tensions between different forces within the regions, interested in destabilizing the situation.”

There were three separate explosions, local authorities in Transnistria said. One targeted a security-agency building in the capital, Tiraspol. The other blasts hit the local airport and a radio station in the village of Mayak.

Vadim Krasnoselsky, the president of Transnistria’s separatist government, called the explosions “terrorist attacks” and blamed Ukraine. “Traces of these attacks lead to Ukraine,” he said in a statement, without providing details. “I assume that those who organized this attack have the goal of dragging Transnistria into the conflict.”

For their part, Ukrainian officials were quick to point a finger at Russia. The Ukrainian defense ministry said its intelligence indicated that the explosions were “a planned provocation” by Russia aimed at inflaming “anti-Ukrainian sentiments.”

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, said on Tuesday that “forces disinterested in regional stability and wishing to create another hotbed of tensions are behind this.” He did not say who those forces were.

Transnistria, with a mixed population of Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian speakers, has been a problem for Moldova’s government for more than three decades, since retired Soviet military officers living there led the rebellion.

“Transnistria was artificially created to keep Moldova threatened all the time,” said Alexandru Flenchea, Moldova’s former deputy prime minister.

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the Moldovan authorities have been increasingly anxious over the possibility that Russia might activate its Transnistria-based troops, either to attack Ukraine or to invade Moldova, which is not a member of NATO or the European Union, and has limited military forces.

Mr. Flenchea said the people running Transnistria might not be keen on war because it would interfere with one of the region’s major economic activities, smuggling.

Iulian Groza, the head of the Institute for European Policies and Reforms, a research institution in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, said a Russian invasion of Moldova did not appear to be imminent. The short-term aim of the Russians, Mr. Groza said, seemed to be to destabilize the region and undermine the pro-European Union government of Moldova.

Whether the threat of an invasion is real or not, Moldovans are worried. Many people reacted to the news about the Transnistria explosions in a similar way as they did to the outbreak of the invasion of Ukraine — fearing the worst.

“People are in panic again,” said Carmina Vicol, the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Chisinau. “The worst case is that war starts here and disrupts everything.”

Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia.

A correction was made on 
April 27, 2022

An earlier version of this article described incorrectly the Russian troops in Transnistria. There are at least about 10,000 Russian and Russia-backed troops stationed there, not 12,000 Russian troops.

How we handle corrections

Michael Crowley
April 26, 2022, 3:38 p.m. ET

American diplomats briefly returned to Ukraine for the first time since the Russian invasion, the U.S. State Department spokesman said. They met in Lviv with Ukrainian officials before returning to Poland for the night, a first step towards an eventual re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.

Andrew Higgins
April 26, 2022, 3:34 p.m. ET

Russia cuts off a major supply of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria.

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Pipelines near a gas processing facility operated by Gazprom on the Yamal Peninsula in Russia's Arctic region.Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

WARSAW — Infuriated by the West’s supply of arms and other support to help Ukraine resist invading Russian troops, Moscow on Tuesday took the fight to Europe’s economy, telling Poland and Bulgaria that it was halting supplies of natural gas, on which both countries and Europe in general are heavily dependent.

A decision by Russia’s energy behemoth Gazprom to cut off gas supplies to two countries that are both members of NATO and the European Union marks the first time that Moscow has directly and openly targeted Europe with its energy weapon. The move upends assurances by Moscow since the Soviet era that, no matter what the political climate, Russia could be counted on as a reliable supplier of natural gas.

European countries have suffered sporadic interruptions in Russian gas supplies in the past, but these were largely the result of squabbles between Russia and Ukraine over what Gazprom claimed were unpaid bills and the theft of gas destined for Europe through a pipeline that crosses Ukrainian territory.

On Tuesday, however, Poland’s main importer of Russian gas, the state-owned company PGNiG, said that Gazprom had announced the “complete suspension” of deliveries through the Yamal pipeline, which stretches from northern Siberia to Poland and Germany through Belarus.

PGNiG said that it had received a letter from Gazprom informing it that all deliveries through the Yamal pipeline were being halted.

Bulgaria’s energy ministry said later on Tuesday that it, too, had been told by Gazprom that its own gas supplies from Russia, which flow through the Ukrainian pipeline, would stop.

Germany also receives some gas through the Yamal pipeline but most of what it needs from Russia flows through Nord Stream, a separate pipeline under the Baltic Sea that appeared to be still operating normally on Tuesday.

Poland, the biggest economy in Europe’s formerly communist east, gets more than 45 percent of its gas from Russia, while Bulgaria gets around 90 percent.

Since Russian invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, both countries have announced plans to wean themselves off Russian energy, but the abrupt halt announced on Tuesday could seriously wound the ability of both countries to heat homes and run businesses.

But with winter now over, warming temperatures should help lessen the blow in both, at least in coming months. Unlike some of its neighbors, Poland burns coal, not gas, for most of its electricity, so it is less vulnerable on that front.

Poland’s climate minister, Anna Moskwa, played down the impact of Russia’s decision, insisting at a news conference in Warsaw on Tuesday that “we are ready to be fully cut off” from Russian gas. Bulgaria’s energy ministry, in a statement, assured consumers that “currently, no restrictions are required on gas consumption in Bulgaria.”

Russia’s decision nonetheless marked a significant ratcheting up of tensions with the European Union, which, since Russia invaded Ukraine, has joined the United States in imposing increasingly stringent economic sanctions, badly damaging the Russian economy.

Both Poland and Bulgaria, along with other European countries except for Hungary, rejected a demand by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that energy purchases be paid for in rubles to help prop up his currency, though the contracts for foreign sales generally require payment in dollars.

Russia has been particularly angry at Poland because of Warsaw’s robust support for Ukraine, which has received many of its NATO-supplied arms through Polish territory and from which nearly three millions refugees have fled across the Polish border.

Bulgaria is traditionally more pro-Russian than most other European countries, particularly Poland, but it nonetheless endorsed European Union sanctions against Russia — unlike Serbia, a Russia-friendly country that is not a member of the European bloc. Bulgaria’s new coalition government has been convulsed by tension over whether to send arms to Ukraine.

Russia has made clear for months that it will favor countries that don’t criticize it with reliable supplies of energy. During a visit in Moscow from Hungary’s Kremlin-friendly leader, Viktor Orban, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr. Putin offered assurances that Hungary, unlike other European countries, did not have to worry about running short of natural gas.

In a sarcastic message on social media last month, Dmitri Medvedev, the deputy head of the Kremlin’s security council and a longtime ally of Mr. Putin, sneered at European leaders as fools for taking measures against Russia that he said would ensure they don’t have enough energy.

“Excellent. The wise decisions of European politicians,” Mr. Medvedev wrote.

The bloc has vowed to cut off its large imports of Russian oil and coal over a period of months, as it searches for replacements and adjusts to higher fuel costs. But Europe is even more dependent on Russian gas, and ending those imports would be more economically damaging; E.U. ministers have said they will reduce the flow from Russia, but not shut it off until 2030.

Boryana Dzhambazova in Sofia contributed reporting.

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Jeffrey GettlemanOleksandr Chubko
April 26, 2022, 3:33 p.m. ET

Jeffrey Gettleman and

Ukrainians destroy a symbol of their country’s ties to Russia.

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The statue, built to represent the connection between Ukraine and Russia, was taken down as part of a broader campaign to remove any lingering symbols of Russia’s dominance during Soviet times.CreditCredit...Jeffrey Gettleman/The New York Times

KYIV, Ukraine — First they knocked off its head. Then they took power saws to its bronze feet.

And finally, in front of a large crowd on a pretty Tuesday afternoon, Ukrainian authorities yanked down one of the grander statues in Kyiv, the capital, a gigantic salute to Ukraine-Russia friendship.

The monument was called The Friendship of Nations and was installed four decades ago.

At more than 26 feet tall, the statue stood in one of the most beautiful stretches of Kyiv, on a high bluff overlooking the Dnipro River and along a graceful promenade.

But as part of a broader campaign to remove any lingering signs of the Soviet days — and Russia’s dominance back then — Kyiv’s mayor decided the statue had to go. It featured the figures of two men, one Ukrainian and one Russian, standing shoulder to shoulder and triumphantly holding up a Soviet shield. It was part of a larger Friendship Arch that will soon be renamed, most likely the Arch of Freedom.

The first thing the work crew did was remove the Russian’s head, which lay on the plaza like a mythical slaying. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, a former prize fighter, said the head fell off when the work crew tried to lift the sculpture with a crane, which he called “symbolic.”

Then workers attacked the base with large circular saws that sent up clouds of sparks and dust.

After that, they tightened ropes around the muscular chests of the two figures and pulled. Hard. Finally, by early evening, the statue was in pieces, on the ground.

“It is good they take it down,” said Andrew Riabeka, a professional translator who was assisting a French journalist covering the event.

“This was propaganda,” he said. “It was a sign of Russian-Ukrainian friendship, and now we are at war.”

Andrew Higgins
April 26, 2022, 2:49 p.m. ET

Russia says it will shut down a major natural gas pipeline to Poland, which gets more than 45 percent of its gas from Russia, according to the state-owned Polish energy company PGNiG. Poland is one of several European countries that has refused a demand by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that all energy bills be paid in rubles, not dollars as specified in their contracts, as he tries to bolster his country's beleaguered currency.

Ivan Nechepurenko
April 26, 2022, 2:35 p.m. ET

Reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia

During a meeting with the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia agreed “in principle” to involve the U.N. and the International Committee for the Red Cross in the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, the U.N. said in a statement, though previous such agreements have fallen through. Ahead of the meeting, Putin asserted that Guterres was “misled” about the situation there and that Russia had been operating humanitarian corridors out of the city.

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Finbarr O'Reilly
April 26, 2022, 2:19 p.m. ET

Reporting from Lviv, Ukraine

Bohdana Ivashyna, 21, was due to begin working as a nurse on Feb. 24 in Zaporizhzhia, in southern Ukraine, but her life and career plans were upended when Russia invaded that day. On Tuesday she boarded a train in Lviv, in western Ukraine, to leave for the Rivne region, northwest of Lviv, where she will visit her father and try to find a place for them to live.

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Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
John Ismay
April 26, 2022, 2:04 p.m. ET

Reporting from Ramstein Air Base, Germany

A new U.S.-led international group will meet monthly to focus on aiding Ukraine.

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Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III announced that the United States would lead monthly meetings with a group of nations to coordinate military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.CreditCredit...Michael Probst/Associated Press

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, GERMANY — After a daylong conference of more than 40 nations helping Ukraine with military and humanitarian aid, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said similar high-level meetings will be held each month going forward to react quickly to the changing nature of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“We’re going to extend this forum beyond today,” Mr. Austin said, announcing the formation of what he called the Ukraine Contact Group. The group will be led by the United States and will include defense ministers and military chiefs, meeting either in person or virtually.

“The group will be a vehicle for nations of good will to intensify our efforts, coordinate our assistance, and focus on winning today’s fight and the struggles to come,” he said after the meeting Tuesday in Germany, at the Ramstein Air Base.

The group’s creation is just one outward sign of how the Biden administration is adjusting to a war that has continued far longer than originally estimated and has consumed enormous amounts of munitions and money. Since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, President Biden has authorized eight “drawdowns” of weapons from Pentagon stockpiles for Ukraine and authorized a total of $3.7 billion in total assistance to Kyiv.

Mr. Austin’s announcement comes at the end of a three-day trip that began with a potentially hazardous visit to Kyiv with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky. The journey, which involved driving into Ukraine from Poland and taking long train rides to and from Kyiv, was supposed to begin secretly but Mr. Zelensky spoke about it publicly on Saturday while the cabinet secretaries were flying to Poland.

After returning to Poland early Monday, Mr. Blinken and Mr. Austin spoke in a warehouse filled with humanitarian aid as well as ammunition for the Soviet-designed weapons used by Ukrainian troops. Mr. Blinken indicated that all of it would be inside Ukraine within a day, as more military equipment continued to arrive for Kyiv.

That afternoon, Mr. Austin flew to Ramstein, where he was joined by Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to prepare for the daylong conference with other defense chiefs.

Opening the meeting, Mr. Austin praised the bravery of Ukrainian troops, took note of Russian atrocities against civilians and pledged his continued support for their country.

Speaking to Ukrainian defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, who was seated next to him, Mr. Austin said, “We’re all here because of Ukraine’s courage, because of the innocent civilians who have been killed, and because of the suffering that your people still endure.”

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has attempted to justify the invasion he ordered by falsely claiming that Ukraine is run by Nazis and that ethnic Russians in the Donbas region of Ukraine have been victims of genocide. Early attempts to seize the capital, Kyiv, were beaten back with heavy Russian losses, and the fighting is now concentrated in Donbas in the east and in southern Ukraine.

“Putin never imagined that the world would rally behind Ukraine so swiftly and surely,” Mr. Austin said to uniformed and civilian officials who assembled in a ballroom in the Ramstein officers club. He said “nobody is fooled” by Mr. Putin’s “phony claims on Donbas” and that “Russia’s invasion is indefensible and so are Russian atrocities.”

“We all start today from a position of moral clarity,” he said.

The meeting included representatives — some attending remotely — from more than 40 nations including Israel, Morocco and Qatar as well as NATO and the European Union.

With a protracted fight expected in eastern and southern Ukraine, the goal is to strengthen Ukraine’s military for the long haul, Mr. Austin said.

Locations for future meetings of the new group will likely rotate among the member nations, a senior U.S. defense official said. Its efforts will build on those already underway at U.S. European Command, where a task force led by a Navy rear admiral in Stuttgart coordinates much of Ukraine’s requests for assistance and arranges delivery of weapons and other matériel.

Mr. Austin stood by comments he made in Poland on Monday, when he said that the United States now wanted Russia “weakened” to the degree that it could not invade its neighbors in the future. He said that it was not a new stance.

“I think we’ve been pretty clear from the outset,” Mr. Austin said. “We do want to make it harder for Russia to threaten its neighbors and leave them less able to do that.”

Over 62 days of combat, he noted, Russia’s forces have suffered substantial casualties, losing equipment, expending many of their precision-guided munitions and enduring the sinking of the cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea.

“And so they are in fact, in terms of military capability, weaker than when it started,” Mr. Austin said. “It will be harder for them to replace some of this capability as they go forward because of the sanctions and the trade restrictions that have been placed on them.”

“So we would like to make sure, again, that they don’t have the same type of capability to bully their neighbors that we saw at the outset of this conflict.”

Ivan Nechepurenko
April 26, 2022, 1:30 p.m. ET

Reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, that peace talks with Ukraine were ongoing via video link and that he hoped they would bring “some positive result.” In a meeting at the Kremlin, Putin said Russia would not sign a security guarantee agreement with Ukraine without the territorial questions of Crimea and Donbas being resolved.

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Edward Wong
April 26, 2022, 1:21 p.m. ET

Reporting from Washington

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that the United States would support Ukraine in trying to push Russian forces out of eastern Ukraine if that is what President Volodymyr Zelensky aims to do. Speaking at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Blinken said, “If that is how they define their objectives as a sovereign, democratic, independent country, that’s what we’ll support.”

Michael Crowley
April 26, 2022, 12:16 p.m. ET

U.S. arms are moving faster than ever to Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Where it once took weeks from the time of a presidential order, he said, “now, often it’s 72 hours.”

Matthew Mpoke Bigg
April 26, 2022, 12:09 p.m. ET

Chernobyl conditions were ‘very dangerous’ after Russia seized it, the head of the world nuclear agency says.

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The Chernobyl Reactor Number 4 site, now heavily sealed and protected, was the source of the nuclear disaster in 1986.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
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An abandoned Russian checkpoint in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
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The Ukrainian military put in a temporary pontoon bridge after retreating Russian forces blew up the original one before leaving Chernobyl.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Russia’s seizure of the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant in northern Ukraine led to a situation that was “very dangerous,” but workers at the reactor kept conditions stable, the head of the international nuclear watchdog agency said on Tuesday.

“I don’t know if we were very close to disaster, but the situation was absolutely abnormal and very, very dangerous,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said. He toured the plant for the first time since Russian forces pulled back in late March.

The occupation, which began shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, raised concerns about safeguards at a site where spent fuel still requires round-the-clock maintenance.

Mr. Grossi said the situation this year was “completely different” from 1986, when an explosion and fire at a reactor caused the worst civilian nuclear disaster in history. The plant was later closed and secured.

“In this case, what we had was a nuclear safety situation that was not normal, that could have developed into an accident,” he told reporters.

Mr. Grossi praised workers at the plant for continuing to do their jobs despite stress and insecurity.

The purpose of his visit was to deliver dosimeters and other radiation monitoring equipment that were donated by the agency and other countries, he said.

The agency is planning to station experts at the plant, he said, and added that the war was making the situation unstable.

“Wars do not mix with anything, let alone nuclear plants,” Mr. Grossi said.

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Michael SchwirtzLynsey Addario
April 26, 2022, 12:07 p.m. ET

Standing in the path of war, a small Ukrainian town braces as Russians advance.

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Hiding in a basement shelter, Tamara Mikheenko, 70, cried as she spoke about the incessant shelling of Orikhiv, in eastern Ukraine.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

ORIKHIV, Ukraine — Squeezed between the Ukrainian and Russian front lines in an increasingly volatile battlefield in southeastern Ukraine, the small town of Orikhiv is constantly under fire, and Tamara Mikheenko, one of the few residents who remain, rarely leaves her basement.

“All the time in the basements, at night, under fire,” Ms. Mikheenko, 70, said as yet another explosion thumped outside. “It’s very scary, like a lightning bolt, everything is falling apart, the house is falling apart.”

Struggling to communicate through tremendous sobs on Tuesday, Ms. Mikheenko begged world leaders, including the presidents of the United States, Russia and Ukraine, to do whatever was necessary to stop the savagery, even as Russian forces appeared to be preparing a large offensive that officials said could steamroll Orikhiv in the coming days.

“Let them agree to stop this madness,” she said.

The night before, an explosion had ripped into the unoccupied house next door, violently jolting the dark cellar Ms. Mikheenko was hiding in.

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A crater from a Russian bomb in the Komyshuvakha area.
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A destroyed residential home in the frontline town of Orikhiv.

Orikhiv lies among a small constellation of tidy farming villages standing right in the path of Russian troops advancing from the south and east. Ukrainian officials believe Russian forces are preparing to make a major push forward in an attempt to expand a stretch of territory they seized in the opening days of the war.

Shelling along this front has intensified in recent days, and all over the region Ukrainian forces are digging new trenches and fortifying positions.

It is in and around these villages, still home to goats, cows and chickens, but to fewer and fewer people, that the current, pivotal phase of the war is being fought. After failing to take the capital, Kyiv, and meeting as yet impenetrable resistance along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has turned the remaining might of his army on the fertile plains east of Ukraine’s Dnipro River and a few key major cities.

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Our cameras captured life on the front lines in southeast Ukraine, where Russian shelling is relentless and it feels like the war is inching closer every day.CreditCredit...By Yousur Al-Hlou, Masha Froliak, Mark Boyer and Benjamin Foley

Already, Russian forces have gobbled up nearly 80 percent of the Donbas region, as well as a ribbon of land connecting Russian territory to the Crimean Peninsula, which Mr. Putin annexed in 2014. One by one, the towns south and east of Orikhiv have fallen into Russian hands.

Ukraine’s forces, primarily from the 128th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade, are now dug into the wooded patches around and between these villages and the vast fields of wheat and sunflowers that are tended by their residents. Soldiers from the brigade say they are preparing to halt the expected Russian offensive and even to push the Russian lines back.

But should Orikhiv also fall, Russian forces will have a nearly open path to the large industrial metropolis of Zaporizhzhia, just under 40 miles away. Zaporizhzhia’s prewar population of about 750,000 has swelled with the daily arrival of evacuees from nearby territory now occupied by Russian forces, including the battered port city of Mariupol.

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Vitaliy Kononenko, 47, walks through his brand new home after it was hit by a projectile.
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A makeshift shrine in a basement shelter where Ms. Mikheenko is in hiding.

Around Zaporizhzhia, a sense of impending danger is palpable. Air raid sirens now sound several times a day and the local military hospital is filled with troops coming in from the front lines with ghastly injuries. On Tuesday, Russia’s military launched a rocket attack against targets inside the city, narrowly missing its nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe when fully operational, according to officials. The rockets hit a city utility, killing one person, though the local government provided no further details.

Since the start of the war on Feb. 24, rocket attacks have been rare in Zaporizhzhia. Not so in Orikhiv. The town is just three miles from the Russian lines, and shelling occurs around the clock, becoming particularly intense in the evenings. Several houses were hit overnight on Tuesday, including the one belonging to Ms. Mikheenko’s neighbor, Vitaliy Kononenko.

“This is what the Russian world has brought us,” Mr. Kononenko said, inspecting the large hole punched through the front of his home. Inside, plastic ceiling panels had melted and the fur of a large teddy bear sitting in the window of a child’s room was singed.

The house, which Mr. Kononenko said he had recently finished building, would have burned to the ground had Ms. Mikheenko’s son, Aleksandr, not dashed from the basement to put it out.

Orikhiv’s mayor, Anatoliy Khvorostyanov, said that, miraculously, the city has suffered no casualties despite the constant shelling. This is partly because of the decision early on to evacuate as many people as possible. Today, only about 30 percent of the city’s prewar population of 20,000 remains, he said.

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Anatoliy Khvorostyanov, the mayor of Orikhiv, talks on the phone outside of his office.
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A family from Mariupol drives through the frontline town of Orikhiven en route to Zaporizhzhia.

Some of those still in the city, like Ms. Mikheenko, stay holed up in their basements, but not everyone does. On Tuesday, among the clusters of neat single-family homes was the occasional resident fussing about in a beautiful blooming front garden. The sounds of gunfire, apparently target practice, sounded in the distance.

Mr. Khvorostyanov has stayed in place, refusing to leave his office in the peach-colored City Hall building. He is needed, he said, to help with the city’s defense. It is not an easy task, as the 251-year-old town was once located on a number of trade routes and has at least seven roads leading into it.

“Now we have to close these routes off from our uninvited guests,” he said. “That’s our main task. We won’t surrender.”

The towns running horizontally along the southeastern Ukrainian front are like touchstones marking the course of the Russian advance. Polohy, about 25 miles to the east of Orikhiv, has already fallen to Russian forces.

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A home hit by a projectile in Orikhiv.
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A resident tending to her blooming garden in Orikhiv.

To the northwest is Komyshuvakha, which Russian forces came dangerously close to until about two weeks ago, when Ukrainian defenders pushed them back. On Tuesday, the biggest drama of the day was the escape of a black and white cow from Natalia Novitskaya’s yard.

But the ravages of war were still present. In front of Ms. Novitskaya’s house is a crater large enough to swallow a small sedan. The blast from the bomb, which struck on March 16, blew out windows and gave one of her sons a concussion, she said.

Locals also showed off the remnants of what appeared to be incendiary weapons that rained down on their homes and fields in the early days of the fighting.

Despite the relative calm now, officials and residents of Komyshuvakha are preparing for the Russians’ return. On Tuesday, backhoes were digging fresh trenches along the sides of the road and soldiers were stocking up on food at the local market.

“We don’t know what they have in their heads, but we are fortifying,” said Yuriy Karapetyan, the mayor. “We are preparing for the worst and will resist until the last.”

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The remnants of what appeared to be incendiary weapons that rained down on residents’ homes and fields in the early days of the fighting.
A correction was made on 
April 27, 2022

An earlier version of this story misidentified the mayor of Orikhiv. It is Anatoliy Khvorostyanov, not Kostyantin Denisov.

How we handle corrections

Ivan Nechepurenko
April 26, 2022, 11:23 a.m. ET

Reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia

With peace talks stalled, Russia raises the specter of nuclear conflict.

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Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia meeting U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in Moscow on Tuesday.Credit...Pool photo by Maxim Shipenkov

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, accused the West on Tuesday of pushing the Ukrainian government to effectively sabotage peace talks, keeping to a tough line a day after he warned of a “serious, real” danger of nuclear war.

Russia has escalated its rhetoric as its troops have been unable to achieve rapid breakthroughs on the ground in eastern Ukraine, while peace talks with Kyiv have stalled.

In Moscow, speaking after a meeting with the U.N. secretary-general, António Guterres, Mr. Lavrov said that Ukraine was “not really interested in negotiations,” and had been pushed by the West to make sure Russia didn’t win militarily.

“They will continue that line by filling Ukraine with weapons,” said Mr. Lavrov, referring to Western countries’ efforts to arm the Ukrainian government. “If that continues, negotiations won’t yield any result.”

On Monday, Mr. Lavrov raised the specter of a nuclear conflict, saying that while such a prospect would be “unacceptable” to Russia, the risks have increased because NATO is “engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy.”

“The risks are quite considerable,” he said in an interview with Channel One, Russia’s state-run TV network.

“I don’t want them to be blown out of proportion,” he said. But “the danger is serious, real — it must not be underestimated.”

The Ukrainian government interpreted Mr. Lavrov’s remarks as a signal that Moscow was willing to use the nuclear threat as its “last hope to scare the world off supporting Ukraine.”

“This only means Moscow senses defeat in Ukraine,” the country’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said on Twitter.

John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, described Mr. Lavrov’s rhetoric as “obviously unhelpful, not constructive.”

“A nuclear war cannot be won and it shouldn’t be fought,” he said. “There’s no reason for the current conflict in Ukraine to get to that level at all.”

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Christopher F. Schuetze
April 26, 2022, 10:58 a.m. ET

Reporting from Berlin

Germany’s shifting stance on heavy weapons exports reflects pressure from inside the governing coalition.

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A Gepard Flakpanzer, the model of armored antiaircraft vehicle cleared for export to Ukraine, being used by German troops during multinational exercises in Texas in 1999.Credit...Joe Raedle/Getty Images

BERLIN — While Germany’s government has never set itself explicitly against the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine, it has found plenty of reasons not to allow their export.

So word on Tuesday that it would permit the sending of up to 50 armored antiaircraft vehicles — a used model called the Gepard Flakpanzer — was both a surprise and a signal of a potentially major shift in government policy, driven by pressure not only from the conservative opposition but also from a group of government lawmakers.

As recently as last week, Chancellor Olaf Scholz implied that sending heavy weapons could lead to a bigger war involving NATO.

“There is no textbook for this situation where you can read about at what point we are perceived as a war party,” he told the newsmagazine Der Spiegel in an interview published on Friday, adding: “Avoiding an escalation toward NATO is my top priority.”

It was only one of many reasons given why no heavy weapons had been sent so far: The government has also said that its own military could not spare such hardware, and that Ukrainian troops would need too much time to learn how to use the equipment it had available. Instead the government focused on financial support and providing modern military equipment for NATO allies who could then send their Soviet-made weapons to Ukraine.

But the debate has come a long way since the moment, shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when the German defense minister responded to Ukraine’s requests for defensive weapons by proudly announcing the donation of 5,000 military helmets.

This time, the biggest pressure on Mr. Scholz ultimately did not come from Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany — who did not shy way from nondiplomatic language in criticizing the slow government response — or from the conservative opposition, which is campaigning ahead of two state elections — but from lawmakers in the parties that make up the governing coalition.

Three senior government lawmakers traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, earlier this month. All three have advocated sending heavy weapons.

One, Marie Agnes Strack-Zimmermann of the Free Democrats, has gone so far as to question whether Mr. Scholz — who counts on the support of her party to stay in power — was a suitable leader given the times.

The other party allied with Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats is the Greens. Anton Hofreiter, that party’s European affairs specialist, declared in a television interview that the obstacle to further helping Ukraine was “in the chancellor’s office.”

“Mr. Scholz talks about epochal change, but he does not implement it sufficiently,” he said, referring to the much-discussed strategic shift that Mr. Scholz announced in a speech to Parliament after the start of the invasion, promising more military spending and a robust foreign policy.

Both government and opposition lawmakers have been involved in setting up a parliamentary discussion on heavy weapons exports, scheduled for Thursday.

And Tuesday’s announcement may presage similar export deals in the days to come. Rheinmetall, a weapons maker in Düsseldorf, has 100 used Marder infantry armored fighting vehicles it would like to export to Ukraine. Separately, the company has applied to send 88 used Leopard tanks.

A government spokesman said a decision on the armored infantry vehicles would be announced soon.

Christopher F. Schuetze
April 26, 2022, 10:44 a.m. ET

Reporting from Berlin

Germany could be free of Russian oil imports in a matter of days, Robert Habeck, Germany’s economics minister and vice chancellor, announced. When the war started, Germany imported 35 percent of its oil from Russia. Habeck’s ministry has been looking for alternative sources of coal, oil and natural gas since then.

Michael Crowley
April 26, 2022, 10:30 a.m. ET

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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Finbarr O’Reilly
April 26, 2022, 9:46 a.m. ET

‘Now he is alone’: A Ukrainian soldier grieves for his slain twin brother.

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Hlib Kihitov, 21, pays his final respects to his twin brother, Ehor Kihitov, in Lviv, Ukraine, on Tuesday.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

Ukrainian soldiers held a funeral on Tuesday for Ehor Kihitov, 21, who was killed this month along with nearly two dozen of his fellow soldiers in an artillery strike in the town of Popasna in the eastern Luhansk region.

At the funeral, Ehor’s twin, Hlib, remained stoic as he stood over his brother’s open coffin, too distraught to speak. “It’s really hard for him,” said their mother, Tamara Kihitova. “He was born 15 minutes after Ehor, but now he is alone.”

The funeral, conducted with military honors and a gun salute, took place in the western city of Lviv, but because the family was from a distant region, only a handful of friends and family attended.

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Ehor was a champion marksman before the war. He volunteered for the army two weeks after the Russian invasion on Feb. 24. The family left the Dnipro region and went to Lviv, among those displaced by the war.

Before he was killed he was caught in a Russian strike on a military training ground in Lviv in mid-March, and another artillery strike in the east that left him and several other soldiers with burns, Ms. Kihitova said.

“This war is terrible and unbelievable,” she said. “I didn’t give birth to my children for someone to kill them. I never wish anyone something like this. But I am very proud of what he did. When he volunteered, I asked him if he was sure. And he said, ‘If not me, then who?’”

Nick Cumming-Bruce
April 26, 2022, 8:41 a.m. ET

Reporting from Geneva

U.N. agencies appeal to donors for an additional $1.25 billion for humanitarian needs in Ukraine.

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U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday.Credit...Pool photo by Maxim Shipenkov

U.N. agencies appealed to donors on Tuesday for an additional $1.25 billion to tackle soaring humanitarian needs in Ukraine, as the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, met Kremlin leaders including Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov in Moscow to urge a cease-fire.

The U.N. agency coordinating humanitarian aid had asked in March for a billion dollars to deliver humanitarian supplies to Ukraine for three months. On Tuesday, it said it would need a total of $2.25 billion over six months.

The agency has already received close to $980 million from donor governments enabling it to get assistance to around 3.4 million people across the country, Jens Laerke, its spokesman in Geneva, told reporters. But as the war, which has uprooted more than 12 million people, moves into a third month it was seeking additional funding to try to get aid to 8.7 million people.

The U.N. refugee agency also announced on Tuesday it was seeking $1.85 billion from donors to support the millions of Ukrainians fleeing to neighboring countries.

More than five million people, 90 percent of them women and children, have left Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, the refugee agency said, but another 7.7 million Ukrainians driven from their homes by conflict remain within the country. Its funding appeal is based on projections that the number of refugees could rise to 8.3 million by the end of the year.

Mr. Guterres was later due to meet President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

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Safak Timur
April 26, 2022, 8:25 a.m. ET

Reporting from Istanbul

In a phone conversation with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey repeated his call for the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to meet in Istanbul, Erdogan’s office said. He also emphasized the importance of a cease-fire, humanitarian corridors and safe evacuations.

Christopher F. Schuetze
April 26, 2022, 8:01 a.m. ET

Reporting from Berlin

Under pressure, Germany announces heavy weapons for Ukraine.

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Germany announced it would send Ukraine dozens of Gepard antiaircraft tanks like this one.Credit...Maurizio Gambarini/DPA, via Reuters

BERLIN — Germany said Tuesday that it would send Ukraine several dozen armored antiaircraft vehicles, a major policy change after a debate over the transfer of heavy weapons that has divided the government.

Germany’s defense minister, Christine Lambrecht, made the announcement at a meeting of allied countries at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany.

The used vehicles, called “Gepard Flakpanzer,” are designed for air defense but can also be used against targets on the ground. The system was designed during the Cold War but has since been updated.

Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, a German arms manufacturer, said it had about 50 of the vehicles — which have radar and guns built atop a tank hull — ready to deploy and would supply them directly to Ukraine.

Germany’s military no longer uses the vehicles, but the model is used in Brazil, Jordan, Qatar and Romania, according to Krauss-Maffei Wegmann. In Brazil, such vehicles have been used to defend soccer stadiums from potential drone attacks during international tournaments.

Despite pressure by members of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government as well as opposition lawmakers, Germany had avoided sending heavy weapons directly to Ukraine. The German government had cited various reasons, including that no weapons were readily available, that it would take too long to train Ukrainian soldiers to operate the equipment and that it could risk provoking Russia into a wider conflict.

The government is discussing several other shipments of heavy weapons to Ukraine from German weapons manufacturers.

The German military announced in February that it would break with its policy of not delivering arms to conflict zones. It has since sent shoulder-launched antitank rockets and surface-to-air defensive weapons to Ukraine, some of them from old East German stockpiles. The government has also sent mines, machine gun munitions, grenades and explosives, according to news media reports.

On Monday, Steffen Hebestreit, the German government’s main spokesman, said a decision on whether to allow the export of 100 old Marder infantry fighting vehicles would be made soon. On Thursday, Germany’s Parliament is set to discuss sending more arms — including heavy weaponry — to Ukraine.

John Ismay
April 26, 2022, 6:49 a.m. ET

Reporting from Ramstein Air Base, Germany

Allies will ‘keep moving heaven and earth’ to supply Ukraine, the U.S. defense chief says.

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Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, center, at the Ukraine Security Consultative Group meeting in Ramstein, Germany, on Tuesday.Credit...Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

In opening remarks to the Ukraine Defense Consultative Group meeting in Germany on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III told a gathering of defense officials from more than 40 countries that he wanted them to leave with a common understanding of Ukraine’s immediate security requirements.

“We are going to keep moving heaven and earth so that we can meet them,” Mr. Austin said.

Speaking to his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksiy Reznikov, Mr. Austin said: “We’re all here because of Ukraine’s courage, because of the innocent civilians who have been killed, and because of the suffering that your people still endure.”

The United States gathered allied nations in Germany to discuss accelerating the supply of weapons to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s offensive in the south and east. The meeting came days after Mr. Austin and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made a secretive visit to Kyiv, where they pledged more assistance in a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

The meeting in Germany included representatives from Albania, Australia, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey, as well as NATO and the European Union. Officials from Germany, the United States and Ukraine sat at the head of the table.

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John Ismay
April 26, 2022, 5:19 a.m. ET

Reporting from Ramstein Air Base, Germany

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III opened the Ukraine Defense Consultative Group meeting in Germany. “We’re here to help Ukraine win the fight against Russia’s unjust invasion, and to build up Ukraine’s defenses for tomorrow’s challenges,” he said, noting that representatives from more than 40 countries were present.

Liz AldermanStanley Reed
April 26, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

Nuclear power could help Europe cut its Russia ties, but not for years.

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A nuclear reactor under construction in Flamanville, France, in 2016. Its completion is a decade behind schedule.Credit...Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg

PARIS — On the windswept coast of Flamanville, an industrial city in northwest France facing the choppy waters of the English Channel, a soaring concrete dome houses one of the world’s most powerful nuclear reactors.

But when this hulking giant will begin supplying power to France’s electrical grid is anyone’s guess.

Construction is a full decade behind schedule and 12 billion euros, or $13 billion, over budget. Plans to start operations this year have been pushed back yet again, to 2024. And the problems at Flamanville are not unique. Finland’s newest nuclear power plant, which started operating last month, was supposed to be completed in 2009.

As President Vladimir V. Putin’s war in Ukraine pushes Europe to sever its dependence on Russian natural gas and oil, nuclear power’s profile is rising, promising homegrown energy as well as reliable electricity.

Nuclear energy could help solve Europe’s looming power crunch, advocates say, complementing a major pivot that was already underway before the war to adopt solar, wind power and other renewable technologies to meet ambitious climate-change goals.

“Putin’s invasion redefined our energy security considerations in Europe,” said Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency. He added, “I would expect that nuclear may well make a step back in Europe and elsewhere as a result of the energy insecurity.”

But turning a nuclear revival into a reality is fraught with problems.

The dash to find ready alternatives to Russian fuel has magnified a political divide in Europe over nuclear power, as a bloc of pronuclear countries led by France, Europe’s biggest atomic producer, pushes for a buildup while Germany and other like-minded countries oppose it, citing the dangers of radioactive waste. A recent European Commission plan for reducing dependence on Russia pointedly left nuclear power off a list of energy sources to be considered.

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Britain’s Hinkley Point nuclear plant, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited this month, is at least four years away from coming online.Credit...Pool photo by Finnbarr Webster

The long delays and cost overruns that have dogged the huge Flamanville-3 project, a state of the art pressurized-water reactor designed to produce 1,600 megawatts of energy, are emblematic of wider technical, logistical and cost challenges facing an expansion.

A quarter of all electricity in the European Union comes from nuclear power produced in a dozen countries from an aging fleet that was mostly built in the 1980s. France, with 56 reactors, produces more than half the total.

A fleet of up to 13 new-generation nuclear reactors planned in France, using a different design from the one in Flamanville, wouldn’t be ready until at least 2035 — too late to make a difference in the current energy crunch.

Across the channel, Britain recently announced ambitions for as many as eight new nuclear plants, but the reality is more sobering. Five of the six existing British reactors are expected to be retired within a decade because of age, while only one new nuclear station, a long-delayed, French-led giant costing 20 billion pounds at Hinkley Point in southwest England, is under construction. Its first part is expected to come online in 2026.

Others being considered in Eastern Europe aren’t expected to come online before 2030.

“Nuclear is going to take so long” because the projects require at least 10 years for completion, said Jonathan Stern, a senior research fellow at the independent Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

“The big problem is getting off Russian gas, and that problem is now — not in a decade, when maybe we’ve built another generation of nuclear reactors,” he added.

Advocates say nuclear power can be a solution if the political will is there.

Belgium’s government, in agreement with the country’s Green party, reversed a decision to phase out nuclear energy by 2025 and extended the life of two reactors for another decade as Russia intensified its assault on Ukraine last month. The energy will help Belgium avoid relying on Russian gas as it builds out renewable power sources, including wind turbines and solar fields, to meet European climate goals by 2035.

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A solar power array in Spain. Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, Europe had pivoted to solar and other renewable energy.Credit...Gianfranco Tripodo for The New York Times

“The invasion of Ukraine was a life changer,” Belgium’s energy minister, Tinne Van der Straeten, said last week, explaining the government’s U-turn. “We wanted to reduce our imports from Russia.”

But in Germany, which is more dependent than any other European country on Russian gas and coal, the idea of using nuclear power to bridge an energy crunch appears to be going nowhere.

Germany is scheduled to close its last three nuclear plants by the end of the year, the final chapter in a program that lawmakers approved to phase out the country’s fleet of 17 reactors after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011.

Two of Germany’s largest energy companies said they were open to postponing the shutdown to help ease the nation’s reliance on Russia. But the Green party, part of Berlin’s governing coalition, ruled out continuing to operate them — let alone reopening three nuclear stations that closed in December.

“We decided for reasons that I think are very good and right that we want to phase them out,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Parliament this month, adding that the idea of delaying Germany’s exit from nuclear power was “not a good plan.”

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The coal-fired Scholven power plant that provides energy for Germany.Credit...Martin Meissner/Associated Press

Even in countries that see nuclear power as a valuable option, a host of hurdles lie in the way. “It is not going to happen overnight,” said Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a research organization.

President Emmanuel Macron’s plans for a nuclear power renaissance in France envision a wave of large and small new-generation atomic reactors at an estimated starting price of €50 billion ($53 billion) — a staggering cost that other European countries can’t or won’t take on. Buildup won’t be fast, he acknowledged, in part because the industry also needs to train a new generation of nuclear power engineers.

“Most governments push and push, and even if they start building it takes a long time,” Mr. Stern of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies said. “All these other technologies are advancing rapidly and they’re all getting cheaper, while nuclear isn’t advancing and it’s getting more expensive.”

In the meantime, many of France’s aging reactors, built to forge energy independence after the 1970s oil crisis, have been paused for safety inspections, making it difficult for French nuclear power to help bridge a Russian energy squeeze, said Anne-Sophie Corbeau of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

“Nuclear production will decrease in France this year unless you find a magic solution, but there is no magic solution,” she said.

Still, Moscow’s aggression may help reverse what had been an arc of the industry’s gradual decline.

Recently there has been a string of upbeat declarations. Besides Britain’s announcement this month to expand its nuclear capacity, the Netherlands, with one reactor, plans to build two more to supplement solar, wind and geothermal energy.

And in Eastern Europe, a number of countries in Russia’s shadow had been making plans to build fleets of nuclear reactors — a move that advocates say appears prescient in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

NuScale Power, an Oregon company selling a new reactor design that it claims will be cheaper and quicker to build because key components will be assembled in factories, has signed preliminary deals in Romania and Poland.

Russia’s invasion has reinforced customers’ “desire to consider nuclear being part of the overall energy mix for their portfolios,” said Tom Mundy, the company’s chief commercial officer.

Nuclearelectrica, the Romanian power company, is pushing ahead with both a NuScale plant and two Canadian reactors, to accompany a pair of nuclear facilities that generate about 20 percent of the country’s electricity, said Cosmin Ghita, the chief executive.

“The Ukraine crisis has definitely shown us the need to bolster energy security,” Mr. Ghita said. “We are gaining more traction for our projects.”

Meike Becker, a utilities analyst at Bernstein, a research firm, said that over the long term, Russia’s war was likely to “help the European idea” of being more energy independent.

“That is something that nuclear can deliver,” she added.

Liz Alderman reported from Paris, and Stanley Reed from London.

A correction was made on 
April 26, 2022

An earlier version of this article misstated the amount of power the Flamanville-3 nuclear plant will generate. It is designed to generate 1,600 megawatts, not 1,600 gigawatts.

How we handle corrections

Christopher F. Schuetze
April 26, 2022, 4:20 a.m. ET

Reporting from Berlin

Germany has decided to send Ukraine dozens of radar-equipped armored vehicles designed for air defense, the first time it has supplied Ukraine with heavy weapons in the war. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht will make the announcement today at Ramstein Airbase, an official said.

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Ivan Nechepurenko
April 26, 2022, 3:59 a.m. ET

Reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia

Two explosions have rattled a village and destroyed two radio antennas in Transnistria, a Russia-aligned breakaway region of Moldova on the border with Ukraine, according to the local interior ministry. On Monday, officials in the regional capital of Tiraspol reported explosions at a security agency building, which Ukrainian intelligence officials said were a provocation carried out by Russia to justify further military action.

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Credit...Transnistrian Interior Ministry, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Cora Engelbrecht
April 26, 2022, 3:02 a.m. ET

Reporting from Krakow, Poland

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, urged the U.N. secretary general to help negotiate an immediate cease-fire to evacuate people from the besieged city of Mariupol. He made the comments in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday.

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Credit...Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
Cora Engelbrecht
April 26, 2022, 2:56 a.m. ET

Reporting from Krakow, Poland

António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, is set to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow on Tuesday. Guterres is scheduled to visit to Ukraine on Thursday.

Cora Engelbrecht
April 26, 2022, 2:48 a.m. ET

Reporting from Krakow, Poland

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, dismissed his Russian counterpart’s remarks as inflammatory and a “last hope” to try to “scare the world off” from supporting Ukraine.

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Cora Engelbrecht
April 26, 2022, 2:47 a.m. ET

Reporting from Krakow, Poland

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, accused NATO on Monday of essentially entering a proxy war by sending weapons to Ukraine. In a televised interview with Russia’s state Channel One, he warned Ukraine's allies not to underestimate the “very significant” risk of nuclear war.

Cora Engelbrecht
April 26, 2022, 2:17 a.m. ET

Reporting from Krakow, Poland

Three explosions were reported in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday morning, as Ukrainian forces were preparing their defenses in the region for an anticipated attack, according to the British defense ministry.

Cora Engelbrecht
April 26, 2022, 1:49 a.m. ET

Reporting from Krakow, Poland

Russian forces have seized the City Council building in the southern port city of Kherson and “changed our security to their own,” said the city’s mayor, Ihor Kolykhaiev. Ukrainian and Western officials have warned that Russia is planning a staged referendum to assert its dominion over the city. 

Cora Engelbrecht
April 26, 2022, 1:38 a.m. ET

Reporting from Krakow, Poland

Russian forces have reportedly captured the eastern city of Kreminna as they try to advance toward the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the British Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update. The governor of Luhansk said last week that Russia had gained control of Kreminna.

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April 26, 2022, 1:10 a.m. ET

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine.

The United States marshaled allies on Tuesday to pledge more military support to Ukraine, accelerating the drive to halt Russia’s offensive and degrade its war machine, as Moscow accused the West of pursuing a proxy war and ignoring the “considerable” risk that it could spiral into a nuclear conflict.

Germany announced it would send Ukraine heavy weapons for the first time, a day after the top Pentagon official said the U.S. objective in the war was a “weakened” Russia.

The German announcement came during a meeting of military leaders from 40 countries held at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany. After the meeting, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III told reporters that allied military leaders planned to gather monthly so they could quickly react to the fluid battlefield situation. The aim is to “strengthen Ukraine’s military for the long haul,” he said.

The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow, and afterward said they had an agreement “in principle” to evacuate civilians from a besieged steel plant in Mariupol, though similar previous agreements have fallen through.

In other developments:

  • Russian missiles struck the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Tuesday, a day after at least five rail stations in western and central Ukraine were hit. Russian forces seized the City Council building in the southern port city of Kherson, the city’s mayor, Ihor Kolykhaiev, said. Ukrainian and Western officials have warned that Russia is planning a staged referendum to assert its dominion over the city.

  • United Nations agencies appealed to donors for an additional $1.25 billion to tackle soaring humanitarian needs in Ukraine, and $1.85 billion to support the millions of Ukrainians fleeing to neighboring countries. More than five million people have left Ukraine during the war, and the U.N. projected that the figure would rise to more than eight million.

  • Explosions shook Transnistria, a Russia-aligned breakaway region of Moldova that borders Ukraine and where hundreds of Russian troops are deployed.

  • Russia’s state gas company has announced the “complete suspension” of natural gas deliveries to Poland through a major pipeline, a potentially serious escalation of the economic conflict between Moscow and European countries that are backing Ukraine.

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