Russia-Ukraine live updates: Biden to meet Ukrainian ministers in Poland; Russia focuses on eastern front

Russia is likely to continue using “heavy firepower on urban areas” in its bombardment of key Ukrainian cities including Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol, Britain’s Defense Ministry warned Saturday in an intelligence update.

The ministry said the Russian military was seeking to “limit its own already considerable losses” and would rely on siege tactics that further endanger civilian lives.

“Russian forces are proving reluctant to engage in large-scale urban infantry operations, rather preferring to rely on the indiscriminate use of air and artillery bombardments in an attempt to demoralise defending forces,” the ministry said.

On Friday, the Pentagon said Russian forces appeared to be halting ground advances toward the capital, Kyiv, and focusing attacks on the eastern Donbas region. The Defense Department called the shift a possible indicator that Moscow may be paring back its ambitions after a string of setbacks.

Citing its latest intelligence assessments, the Pentagon noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin has begun to mobilize military reinforcements to send into Ukraine after weeks of significant losses.

“We now have indications that they are drawing on forces from Georgia,” said a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Biden administration. The official referred to Russian troops based in Georgia, adding, “We don’t have an exact number.”

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — The theater in Mariupol was supposed to be a safe haven.

Its walls were thick and sturdy. People had packed into the basement, foyer and the dressing rooms backstage in the hope of escaping Russia’s bombardment of Mariupol, Ukraine’s coastal city that President Vladimir Putin appears set on seizing at any cost.

“We thought maybe they’d see there were kids there and not bomb it,” said Alexiy, 34, who left with his wife and 7-year-old son the day before an apparent Russian attack March 16 left parts of the building in ruin, leaving some people badly injured and officials struggling to determine a possible death toll.

“They even tied a white flag to the top of the building,” he said. Like many people interviewed by The Washington Post, he spoke on the condition that only one name be published because of security concerns.

Hospitals, ambulances, doctors and patients continue to come under fire in Ukraine, where the World Health Organization says more than 70 such attacks have taken place since Russia invaded — a number that is growing on a “daily basis.”

The organization has recorded 72 attacks on Ukraine’s health-care facilities or personnel since the war began — 68 of which have been confirmed, with the others listed as probable or possible. The verified attacks have caused at least 71 deaths and 37 injuries, and the strikes impacted medical personnel, patients, vehicles and supply chains, according to WHO data.

“Health facilities should be safe places for both doctors and nurses, but also patients to turn to for treatment,” the WHO’s Ukraine country representative, Jarno Habicht, said in an interview with the BBC.

“This should not happen,” Habicht said, warning that the total number of attacks was likely to increase each day.

Some health-care facilities across Ukraine have been reduced to rubble. Doctors are going to extreme measures to keep patients alive amid the chaos and uncertainty, notably by moving expectant mothers underground to give birth.

Ukrainian officials say Russian strikes have destroyed key medical infrastructure across the country, posing a direct threat to those suffering cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, HIV and tuberculosis — illnesses that WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says are among the country’s leading causes of mortality.

Vladimir Putin had a very pointed way of summing up the international efforts to sanction his country for its invasion of Ukraine. It’s all an attempt, he said Friday, to “cancel” Russia.

In a speech for a literature awards ceremony, the Russian president struck chords that seemed to have been lifted from American conservative punditry, griping about “cancellation,” a favored culture-war term that has gained traction in recent years.

The notion of getting “canceled” — which began life as a Black-culture punchline before it transformed into a White-grievance watchword — has become a central storyline in right-wing media’s ongoing culture wars. The general premise is that criticism or public shaming of a person for saying certain things or alleged bad behavior is tantamount to censorship and erasure.

While entertainers and politicians on the left have also lamented “cancel culture,” conservative media frequently depicts it as a pervasive sickness threatening to undermine American values — and it has turned into a major area of coverage.

President Biden visited the Polish city of Rzeszow on Friday, in a show of support for a NATO ally of the United States. He met with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda and greeted members of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division stationed some 60 miles from the Ukrainian border.

As of Friday, over 2.2 million displaced Ukrainians have fled to Poland — more than to any other country — sparking concerns that the sudden influx is placing severe strain on public services. Warsaw, home to roughly 1.8 million people, took in more than 300,000 Ukrainians in the three weeks after the war broke out.

The 82nd Airborne, fresh from its previous mission in Afghanistan, is commanded by Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, the last soldier to walk up the ramp on the final U.S. military plane to leave Kabul. Its members make up the bulk of U.S. military presence along NATO’s eastern flank.

For more than a decade, the Pentagon, pinned down in Afghanistan, followed China’s rise as a global power and Russia’s ambitious military modernization program with growing alarm. The consensus in Beijing, Moscow and among some in Washington was that an era of U.S. global dominance was rapidly coming to an end.

But one month into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, senior Pentagon officials are brimming with newfound confidence in American power, spurred by the surprising effectiveness of U.S.-backed Ukrainian forces, Russia’s heavy battlefield losses and the cautionary lessons they believe China is taking from the war.

“Let me put it this way,” said one senior Pentagon official of America’s standing in the world. “Who would you switch places with? Seriously, who would you switch places with?”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday called on Moscow to negotiate in earnest, stressing the casualties that have been inflicted on Russian troops a month into the war. In a video address, Zelensky also praised his fighters for their fierce resistance, which has surprised Russia and the world.

The true scale of Russia’s casualties is unknown, but Zelensky claimed in the video that more than 16,000 Russian troops have been killed. (NATO has tallied up to 15,000 deaths, while the Kremlin said this week that 1,351 Russian service members have been killed and 3,825 wounded.)

“Our defenders are leading the Russian leadership to a simple and logical idea: talk is necessary,” the Ukrainian leader said.

But a peace deal remains elusive, with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeting Friday that Kyiv and Moscow have not been able to reach a consensus on key issues such as Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Kuleba urged the international community to keep up sanctions on Russia and maintain the delivery of military aid until the Kremlin gave up its “ultimatums.”

Zelensky, in the Friday video, also mockingly speculated about the whereabouts of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who has rarely been seen in public over the past three weeks.

“They say that the Minister of Defense of Russia has disappeared somewhere … I wonder if he personally wanted to visit Chornobaivka?” he said, referencing an airfield where Russia has come under fierce Ukrainian attack.

NEW DELHI — As the war in Ukraine enters its second month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi struck a conciliatory note on Friday toward longtime rival India and urged the two Asian giants to speak "with one voice” in his first visit to New Delhi since a tense border standoff began two years ago.

But his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, downplayed the prospects for an immediate rapprochement with China and said the border talks were “works in progress.” Relations could not return to normal so long as the territorial disputes remained unresolved, Jaishankar told reporters on Friday after a three-hour meeting with Wang.

Wang’s visit, initiated by China, came at a sensitive moment for both countries: Beijing has faced Western pressure, and the possibility of sanctions, over its support for an increasingly isolated Russia. India, meanwhile, has also drawn criticism from Western capitals over its continued refusal to condemn Russia or cut off its purchases of Russian arms and oil, despite India’s growing role as a partner to Washington.