Russia-Ukraine live updates: Biden heads to Europe; Poland to expel 45 Russians ‘pretending to be diplomats’

BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday reiterated his call for energy independence from Russia but said sanctions and import controls should not deal a heavier blow to Europe than to Russia’s leadership.

An immediate embargo of Russian oil and gas, he said, would wreak havoc on the German economy, risking entire sectors and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Scholz last month halted certification of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline connecting Germany to Russia, but he has rejected demands to shut down its forerunner, Nord Stream 1, instead saying Germany can rapidly wean itself off Russian supplies.

Germany has already faced skyrocketing fuel prices in recent weeks. Scholz said as part of his remarks, delivered in the Bundestag during a debate over the federal budget, that financial support for residents would offset painful price increases.

The chancellor also hailed President Biden’s visit to Brussels for an emergency NATO summit, saying, “Rarely has the unity of the European Union, the solidarity within NATO and the agreement of the G-7 been as great as it is today.”

Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia told reporters Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to attend the Group of 20 summit that the Southeast Asian country is hosting in October. Western nations reportedly are trying to exclude Moscow from the G-20, a group of large global economies.

“Not only the G-20, many organizations in the West are now trying to expel Russia,” Ambassador Lyudmila Vorobieva said. “The reaction of the West is absolutely unproportional. …Expelling Russia from the economic forum will not help economic problems to be solved.”

She praised Indonesia’s “firm position” and urged it not to buckle under Western pressure. Jakarta has long had close relations with Moscow, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo recently told Japanese news magazine Nikkei Asia that he supported a cease-fire but viewed economic sanctions as a poor tool.

Polish Economic Development and Technology Minister Piotr Nowak proposed excluding Russia from the G-20 during a meeting last week with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, he told reporters.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that it “cannot be business as usual for Russia in international institutions and in the international community,” but that Washington would consult with its allies and partners.

Russian membership in the Group of Eight, an organization of leading industrialized nations, was suspended following Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The United States has expressed concern after a Kremlin official refused to rule out the possibility that Russia would use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday that Russia would use its nuclear arsenal only in the case of an existential threat.

“We have a concept of domestic security, and well, it’s public. You can read all the reasons for nuclear arms to be used,” he said. “So, if it is an existential threat for our country, then it [the nuclear option] can be used in accordance with our concept.”

The Pentagon called the remarks “dangerous,” while seeking to downplay the risk of a nuclear conflict.

“It’s not the way a responsible nuclear power should act,” Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said. However, he said the Pentagon has not “seen anything that would lead us to conclude that we need to change our strategic deterrent posture.”

In a news briefing Monday, Kirby had said the Pentagon had no indication that Russia is planning to install nuclear weapons in Belarus, and he would not respond to a question about whether the United States would view that as an escalation in the conflict.

Former U.S. defense secretary Leon Panetta also called Peskov’s comments “dangerous.” But he told CNN, “I don’t know that it’s going to happen” because “Putin has to worry about how the U.S. would respond, and he has to worry about his own survival.”

Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin and his officials have cultivated doubt around the possibility that Russia might use its nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

In his speech announcing Russia’s “special military operation” there, Putin warned countries that interfered in Ukraine that they would face consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history,” a remark that many analysts saw as a veiled nuclear threat. And in late February, Putin ordered nuclear forces on alert.

When asked by Amanpour on Tuesday whether Putin would use the nuclear option, Peskov said: “President Putin intends to make the world listen to and understand our concerns. We have been trying to convey our concerns to the world, to Europe, to the United States, for a couple of decades, but no one would listen to us.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could lead to famine in Africa and the Middle East if Europe does not urgently increase funding to the U.N. World Food Program, its executive director, David Beasley, has warned.

Beasley told Politico that the World Food Program (WFP) is “billions short” on funding due to inflation caused by the pandemic, as well as the impact of climate change and conflict. He warned European leaders, who are meeting to discuss the global food crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine, that “failure to provide a few extra billion dollars” this year would mean “famine, destabilization and mass migration” for the world.

“If you think we’ve got hell on Earth now, you just get ready,” Beasley said, adding that the situation is likely to worsen later this year, spurring migration. “If we neglect northern Africa, northern Africa’s coming to Europe. If we neglect the Middle East, [the] Middle East is coming to Europe.”

Supply chains around the world have been disrupted by the war, and the prices of food and fuel are surging from the United States to Europe. Middle Eastern and African countries that rely heavily on Black Sea grains and vegetable oils are also witnessing soaring prices.

An estimated 13 million people in Yemen rely on food aid from the U.N. agency — and 45 percent of the Haitian population struggles with food insecurity. The WFP has also warned that its funds for Afghanistan are dwindling, due to rising food prices and the diversion of foreign aid to help those fleeing Ukraine.

At least 100,000 people are still living under worsening humanitarian conditions and fearing for their lives in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine’s leader said in a nightly video address Tuesday.

Zelensky said officials were doing “everything we can to free our people,” from the strategic city. Ukrainian and Russian forces have battled in the streets of Mariupol as Moscow attempts to claim an area that would cement its control of the Black Sea coast from the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula to the Russian border.

“As of today, there are about 100,000 people in the city in inhumane conditions. In a complete blockade. No food, no water, no medicine. Under constant shelling, under constant bombing,” Zelensky said of Mariupol, which has come under some of the fiercest Russian bombardment since the conflict began. Before the conflict, Mariupol had an estimated population of about 441,000.

He said Ukrainian officials have been trying to stabilize humanitarian corridors to allow in food, water and aid for more than a week. However, “almost all our attempts, unfortunately, are disrupted by the Russian occupiers by [their] shelling or deliberate terror,” he added.

Zelensky also said a humanitarian convoy on its way to the city was “captured by the occupiers” on an agreed route near the region of Mangush, west of Mariupol. He said bus drivers and employees of the State Emergency Service “were taken prisoner.”

“Despite all the difficulties, 7,026 Mariupol residents were rescued today,” he added.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Kirill Timoshenko said Wednesday in a Telegram post that humanitarian corridors would continue to operate from Mariupol to the city of Zaporizhzhia about 140 miles to the northwest. An update form the Mariupol City Council on Wednesday said that almost 45,000 people have been evacuated since fighting began.

Zelensky also confirmed that Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias has expressed an intention to personally accompany a shipment of humanitarian aid to Mariupol, which historically has had a significant ethnic Greek population.

Human rights groups have documented what they say are brutal tactics by Russian forces in the city, depriving residents of water and food and forcing them to shelter in basements. Most cellphone communication has been cut off since early March, meaning that only incomplete reports of residents’ ordeals have filtered to the outside world.

Zelensky said late Tuesday that negotiations with Russia are continuing. “We continue to work at various levels to force Russia to peace, to end this brutal war,” he said. “It’s very difficult.”

Amar Nadhir and Amy Cheng contributed to this report.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said Tuesday that he intends to accompany a shipment of humanitarian aid to Mariupol, the besieged southern Ukrainian city that has historically had a significant ethnic Greek population.

Dendias said he has notified Kyiv and asked Russian forces not to interfere with his efforts. Greece, which is a member of both NATO and the European Union, will continue to be “present in the region … where Greeks settled centuries ago,” Dendias said.

Some 100,000 Ukrainians of Greek origin lived in Mariupol before the Russian invasion, according to Athens. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has pledged to help rebuild a maternity hospital in Mariupol that was destroyed by an airstrike.

In a video address to his nation Tuesday evening, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he welcomed the personal effort from Dendias. He added that thousands of residents are living under worsening conditions and fearing for their lives in the besieged port city.

“I am grateful to the minister of foreign affairs of Greece, who was the first European official to decide to support the work of our humanitarian corridors in Mariupol, to evacuate our people from the city and bring in humanitarian aid, which is crucially important for everyone,” Zelensky said.

Adela Suliman contributed to this report.

Four Ukrainian children who had to halt cancer treatments because of the Russian invasion were airlifted from Poland to Tennessee to resume their medical care, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday.

The children will be cared for at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter that the State Department was “humbled” to help the four children come to the United States. They are between 9 months and 9 years old, the hospital said in a news release.

St. Jude will give the children and their immediate family members food and other support, Price said in a statement. In addition to cancer treatment, patients will receive trauma-informed psychosocial therapy, St. Jude said.

“This is exactly why my father founded St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. When he said no child should die in the dawn of life, he did not mean just America’s children and it is why St. Jude Global exists today. My sisters and I are very proud to carry on his legacy,” Tony Thomas, a board member and the son of hospital founder Danny Thomas, said in a statement.

The State Department arranged the trip after some European hospitals that have been caring for cancer patients coming out of Ukraine reached capacity, Price told reporters at a news briefing later in the day.

First lady Jill Biden, who lost her eldest son Beau Biden to a brain cancer in 2015 and has long advocated for supporting cancer patients and their families, reportedly plans to visit the children.