LVIV, Ukraine — The war in Ukraine entered its second month Thursday with Ukrainian military forces fending off Russian ground advances in major cities even as deadly bombings continued to worsen the country’s humanitarian crisis.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used a video address in English to call on global supporters to rally in city squares around the world to show that “Ukraine matters.”
“Russia is trying to defeat the freedom of all people in Europe — of all the people in the world,” said Zelenskyy, who stood in central Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
“Come to your squares, your streets. Make yourselves visible and heard. Say that people matter, freedom matters, peace matters, Ukraine matters.”
It was a general appeal after a string of daily speeches by Zelenskyy to foreign lawmakers requesting more support from their countries. He continued with his high-level pitches Thursday with an address to Swedish lawmakers and a speech to an emergency summit of NATO leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, for more materiel to help beat back Russian troops on the ground and deadly attacks from the skies.
“So far we haven’t received a single plane” from NATO, Zelenskyy said. “You have at least 20,000 tanks. Ukraine is asking for 500. From all of your tanks, just 500 — give them to us, sell them to us. So far we haven’t got a clear answer.”
His military forces continued to put up spirited resistance to an invading force of greater size and strength, with fighting reported in cities across Ukraine on Thursday.
Around Kyiv, where Ukrainian military leaders and Western intelligence officials say local forces have pushed the Russians farther back on the city outskirts, artillery fire and battles were reported overnight in the northwestern suburbs of Kotsiubynske and Irpin and farther out in Yasnohorodka.
The Kyiv city administration said Thursday that Russian attacks have damaged or destroyed 10 homes, 12 schools and six kindergartens since last month.
In the northeast near the Russia border, the second-largest city of Kharkiv shook overnight as a loud explosion was heard across neighborhoods. The regional governor, Oleg Sinegubov, told local media that the sound came from Russian missiles. Casualties were unknown.
“People do not leave bomb shelters almost around the clock,” a statement from the Kharkiv regional police department said Thursday. Local officials said more than 500 people had died since the war began Feb. 24.
Midday Thursday, about 200 people who had emerged from shelters — some of which are subway stations — lined up outside the Archangel Michael church, southeast of the city center, for food and aid. At the Taras Shevchenko Monument near the center of Kharkiv, dozens of volunteers packed sandbags to pile around the statue to protect it from further bombardment. Shevchenko is a beloved 19th-century Ukrainian poet and writer.
In the north in Chernihiv, close to Belarus, government officials reported that Russian bombs tore apart a key bridge Wednesday that was used to truck in humanitarian aid and evacuate residents. The battered city has drawn a comparison to the southern port of Mariupol, large parts of which have been reduced to rubble as its 100,000 remaining residents — less than one-quarter of its prewar population — struggle to survive without basic services.
Lyudmila Denisova, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, said in a video that Chernihiv has “no electricity, water, heat and almost no gas,” and infrastructure has been “destroyed.”
In the southeastern city of Melitopol, the mayor has accused Russian troops of taking “hostages.” Ivan Fedorov, who himself was detained by Russian forces before a prisoner swap, said Wednesday that his city was on “the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe.” On Thursday, he said an aid and evacuation route was open between the city and Zaporizhzhia, a key junction for humanitarian corridors about 80 miles north, and posted photos of buses lining up.
In Lviv in the west, the flood of evacuees — mostly from eastern and southern Ukraine — continued apace. A train with hundreds of evacuees arrived at 1 p.m. at the central train station after a 24-hour ride from Zaporizhzhia.
“We feel lucky to be alive,” said Vera, 85, who was traveling with her friend Olga, 78. Both women declined to give their last names, citing concern for their safety.
They said they had been on the road for three days in cars, buses and trains from the port city of Berdyansk, west of Mariupol and now largely under Russian control, and passed several Russian checkpoints on the way out. In Lviv, they and others like them were given the choice to go to shelters or be transported to the Polish border, 40 miles west.
In his appeal for more help from NATO, Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s forces were on “unequal terms” with Russia’s. “You can see the consequences today — the number of people killed, the number of peaceful cities ruined,” Zelenskyy said.
He acknowledged that Ukraine was not itself a member of the 30-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization, occupying a “gray zone” between the West and Russia. But he insisted that his nation was fighting for values held in common with NATO members.
NATO has doubled its troops in Eastern European nations in the last month but refused to enact a no-fly zone over Ukraine for fear of sparking a wider war. Notably on Thursday, Zelenskyy did not repeat his request for a no-fly zone.
NATO agreed to send equipment to Ukraine to protect against chemical attacks, the use of which “would totally change the nature of the conflict,” Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s secretary-general, said.
“This could include detection equipment, protection and medical support, as well as training for decontamination and crisis management,” Stoltenberg said after the emergency summit in Brussels. He said NATO members were also focused on their own “preparedness and readiness.”
The U.S. announced that it would take in 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and provide an additional $1.3 billion in aid to Ukraine and neighboring nations dealing with the growing refugee crisis. The promise nearly doubles the overall number of refugees from all parts of the world that the U.S. previously said it would allow in this fiscal year. Officials said Ukrainians would immigrate via the nation’s refugee admissions program as well as other avenues.
As the death toll in Ukraine — more than 900, according to a conservative estimate from the United Nations — continues to climb, the U.N. General Assembly was set Thursday to vote on a resolution blaming Russia for the growing humanitarian crisis and calling for an end to the invasion. The U.N. says that more than 10 million people have been displaced by the war, with 3.5 million fleeing the country, and that more than half of Ukrainian children have left their homes.
Moscow has denounced the proposed U.N. resolution as “anti-Russian.”
With no end in sight to the fighting, the diplomatic and economic battle between Russia and Western nations has also intensified.
Biden landed Wednesday night in Brussels to begin a three-day European tour to strengthen European and American resolve in support of Ukraine and against Russia, which the U.S. on Wednesday formally accused of war crimes. His visit came as Russia said it would expel some U.S. diplomats in response to a similar move by the U.S. against Russian diplomats.
The U.S., which has joined Britain and the European Union in announcing multiple rounds of sanctions, said Thursday it would sanction dozens of Russian financial businesses and state-owned defense companies as well as 328 members of the Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament.
Britain also announced 65 new sanctions, which target oligarchs as well as key Russian industries and companies, including several banks, the railway system and the paramilitary Wagner Group.
Russia, which has seen its economy tumble amid sanctions, on Thursday reopened its stock market for the first time since Feb. 25 — with extensive restrictions. Only 33 companies, which are all on the main Moscow index, were allowed to trade, and short selling was banned.
In a statement, Daleep Singh, the U.S. deputy national security adviser for international economics, called it a “charade” and a “Potemkin market opening.”
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(McDonnell reported from Lviv, Yam from Kharkiv and Kaleem from London.)
