On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy summoned the memory of Pearl Harbor and the 11 September, terror attacks on US as he appealed to the Congress to do more to help Ukraine's fight against Russia.
However, Zelensky acknowledged the no-fly zone he has sought to “close the sky"to the Russians over his country may not happen.
The Russian military offensive on Ukraine has continued into the third week. Russia invaded Ukraine in the early hours of 24 February, setting off the worst conflict in Europe in decades.
The invasion on the part of Russia, has jolted the post-Cold War world order and caused over three million people to flee Ukraine.
Here are ten key developments
Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" to "demilitarise"and "de-nazify" the former Soviet state and support Moscow-backed separatists in the east. He warns the international community against intervening.
Since 24 February, Ukraine has seen over 3 million refugees flee, many dead and many injured, as Russia unleashed relentless bombing and shelling on the East European country.
Sanctions imposed on Russia and US
The West started imposing sanctions against Russia, and sent military aid to Ukraine. Air spaces were closed to Russian aircraft and Russia is kicked out of one sporting and cultural event after another, including the World Cup. Major companies start to shut up shop in Russia. The value of rouble also hit the lowest during this sanctions.
On Tuesday, Russia issued sanctions put US President Joe Biden and other US officials in retaliation.
Ukraine strikes back
While President Zelenskyy's bravery in not fleeing capital city Kyiv stays applauded globally, satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press show a suspected Ukrainian strike on the Russian-held Kherson International Airport and Air Base set several helicopters and vehicles ablaze.
The images Tuesday at the dual-use airfield show thick black smoke rising overhead from the blazes. At least three helicopters appeared to be on fire, as well as several vehicles. At a pad further away, other helicopters appeared damaged from an earlier strike.
The Ukrainian president’s office said that fighting had continued at Kherson airport on Tuesday, with “powerful blasts" rocking the area during the course of the day. They said they were assessing damage in the area, without elaborating.
Kherson is about 450 kilometers (275 miles) southeast of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
Meanwhile, satellite images Tuesday of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Enerhodar, Ukraine, showed no damage to the site’s six reactors after Russian forces engaged in a firefight to seize the facility. Zaporizhzhia is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and the fighting raised fears about safety there.
Zaporizhzhia is about the same distance and direction as Kherson from Kyiv. Residents in the region are building barricades and setting up firing positions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said some 4,000 vehicles left Mariupol in the first major evacuation from the besieged southern city, but most of the convoy spent the night on the road out toward Zaporizhzhia.
Negotiation talks
Several rounds of negotiation talks between Russia and Ukraine have failed. On Wednesday, Russia said that Ukrainian neutrality was taking centre stage at ongoing talks between Moscow and Kyiv aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to nearly three weeks of fighting.
Putin's statement on war
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that the operation in Ukraine is unfolding “successfully, in strict accordance with pre-approved plans" and decried Western sanctions against Russia, describing them as “aggression and war with economic, political, information means."
At the same time Putin said that the West has failed to wage “an economic blitzkrieg" against Russia.
“In effect these steps are aimed at worsening the lives of millions of people," Putin said of the sanctions that have delivered a crippling blow to Russia’s economy.
“One should clearly understand that the new set of sanctions and restrictions against us would have followed in any case, I want to emphasize this. Our military operation in Ukraine is just a pretext for the next sanctions," Putin told a government meeting Wednesday.
Newer tech introduced
Russian tech entrepreneurs are set to launch a picture-sharing application on the domestic market to help fill the void left by Instagram, which the authorities blocked this week.
The new service, known as Rossgram, will launch on March 28 and have additional functions such as crowdfunding and paid access for some content, its website said on Wednesday.
Covid concerns amid war
Hospital workers in Ukraine’s second-largest city find themselves on two frontlines, battling Covid-19 in intensive care units as war rages outside.
The Kharkiv Regional Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital, the city’s leading facility for treating virus patients throughout the pandemic, has barricaded its windows and is adapting every day.
Hospital director Dr. Pavel Nartov said air raid sirens go off multiple times daily, forcing fragile patients into the hospital’s makeshift bomb shelter. Handling ICU patients on ventilators is the most difficult and dangerous part of the process, but also the most crucial, given the dangers of exposing oxygen tanks to bombings and shrapnel, he said.
“Bombing takes place from morning into night. Thank God a bomb has not yet hit our hospital. But it could hit at any time," he told The Associated Press.
Kharkiv has been under sustained fire from Russian forces since the outbreak of the war, with shelling hitting residential buildings and sending masses of people fleeing.
Ukraine’s official daily COVID-19 cases reached record highs in February but have declined since Russia invaded amid the chaos of war. COVID-19 concerns have fallen by the wayside as people focus on fleeing the fighting.
Nuclear threat
With his troops quickly getting bogged down, Putin puts Russia's nuclear forces on high alert on February 27, citing "aggressive" statements by NATO members and the financial sanctions.
The dramatic move, which draws comparisons with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, is seen as a warning to NATO not to intervene.
Oil embargo
In a bid to starve Moscow of funds for the war, US President Joe Biden announces a ban on US imports of Russian oil and gas. The EU says it will cut its imports of Russian gas by two-thirds and Britain says it will phase out its Russian oil imports.
An attack on March 9 on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, which wounded 17 people, including a heavily pregnant woman, causes international outrage. Moscow says the attack was staged.
NATO membership
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Ukraine is not going to join NATO “any time soon," after the country’s president acknowledged Ukraine would not become part of the Western military alliance.
President Vladimir Putin has long depicted Ukraine’s NATO aspirations as a threat to Russia, something the alliance denies.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Ukraine realized it could not join NATO, his most explicit acknowledgment that the goal, enshrined in Ukraine’s constitution, was unlikely to be met.
It came as Russia and Ukraine held a new round of talks, with Zelenskyy saying Wednesday that Russian demands were becoming “more realistic."
On Wednesday, Johnson — one of the most vocal Western supporters of Ukraine — said “the reality of the position" is that “there is no way Ukraine is going to join NATO any time soon." But he said the decision had to be for Ukraine to make.
(With inputs from agencies)
