The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, were both asked today about the possibility of a no-fly zone over humanitarian corridors in Ukraine.
Truss pointed to the anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft system that the UK announced today it would be supplying to Ukraine:
"The reality is that setting up a no-fly zone would lead to a direct confrontation between Nato and Russia, and that is not what we are looking at.
What we are looking at is making sure that the Ukrainians are able to defend their own country with the best possible selection of anti-tank weapons and anti-[aircraft] systems."
Blinken said he agreed with everything Truss said, later adding:
"If I were in president Zelenskiy’s position, I’m sure I would be asking for everything possible, in his mind, to help the Ukrainian people and, as the foreign secretary and I have laid out, both of our countries, and so many others, have done extraordinary things to make sure that the Ukrainians have in their hands the means to effectively defend themselves against this war of choice from Russia."
West has 'serious concern' Putin could use chemical weapons in Kyiv
Updated
Summary
It is 7.30pm in Ukraine. Here’s where we stand right now:
- A children’s hospital and maternity ward in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol has been destroyed by a Russian airstrike this afternoon, Ukrainian officials say. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said children are buried under rubble and the regional governor said 17 people have been wounded. The Guardian could not independently verify this. Ukraine has accused Russian forces of “holding 400,000 people hostage” in Mariupol. The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the city, where conditions are described as “apocalyptic”, was still being shelled by Russian troops despite an agreement to establish a safe evacuation corridor for civilians.
- Ukrainian authorities have said the power supply has been cut to the defunct Chernobyl power plant. The national power company Ukrenergo said it was impossible to restore the power lines because of fighting in the surrounding areas. The UN’s atomic watchdog said the spent nuclear fuel stored there had cooled down sufficiently for it not to be an imminent safety concern.
- Ukrainian authorities said earlier that the corridors should allow residents of the heavily bombarded cities of Mariupol, Enerhodar, Sumy, Izyum and Volnovakha, as well as towns around Kyiv including Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel, to leave, calling on Russian forces to respect an “official public commitment” to cease fire. But Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko says Moscow has “largely failed” to adhere to these agreements. Civilians have been unable to evacuate from Izyum because of continued Russian shelling in the eastern Kharkiv region, said the regional governor, Oleh Synyehubov, adding that buses intended to evacuate them were still waiting at the entrance to the town.
- Zelenskiy said the international community would be responsible for a mass “humanitarian catastrophe” if it did not agree a no-fly zone and warned that the country was at maximum threat level. In his daily televised address, he said Ukrainians had shown throughout the last two weeks that they would never give in.
- More than 3 million Ukrainians will need food assistance, the head of the World Food Programme said. David Beasley, executive director of the UN agency, met Poland’s foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau, to discuss helping refugees arriving in Poland.
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More images from an earlier Russian airstrike today that destroyed a maternity hospital in Mariupol, where pregnant women and medical staff were present.
From the Kyiv Independent:
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