Russia-Ukraine live updates: Kyiv, Chernihiv accuse Russia of attacks despite promise to reduce strikes

BERLIN — Poland’s prime minister said Wednesday his country was taking aggressive steps to end its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, including by halting oil imports by the end of the year and cutting itself off from Russian coal as soon as April or May.

The prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, urged other European countries to follow suit and “walk away” from Russian energy supplies. Speaking at an oil refinery outside Warsaw, he said energy payments were funding the “war arsenal” unleashed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he called Europe’s dependence on Russian supplies “criminal.”

But the issue has divided the European Union, whose member states buy a quarter of their oil and more than 40 percent of their gas from Russian suppliers.

Germany, which has resisted an energy embargo, initiated the first phase of an emergency plan Wednesday for potential disruptions to its gas supply. It made the move ahead of a Thursday deadline set by the Kremlin for the development of procedures by which imports are to be purchased in rubles, as Putin has demanded. The world’s major economies earlier this week rebuffed the order.

The State Department warned U.S. citizens on Tuesday that they may be “singled out” by Russian authorities for detention, underscoring the potential consequences of traveling to or residing in Russia amid the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The United States has maintained a “Do Not Travel” warning — the highest level — for Russia throughout the buildup to the war. For months, Washington has cautioned that Americans may be harassed by Russian officials and arrested on “spurious charges.” The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has only limited ability to assist Americans, the State Department said in its latest travel advisory.

In one prominent instance, WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner was arrested at a Russian airport in February when customs officials said they found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. It took more than a month before an American diplomat was allowed to visit her in custody.

U.S. Marine Corps veteran Trevor Reed, serving a nine-year prison sentence imposed by a Russian court in 2020 for a drunken incident he said he does not recall, has also accused Moscow of jailing him on politically motivated grounds.

Russian units “suffering heavy losses” are being forced to return to Belarus and Russia to “reorganize and resupply,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its intelligence update Wednesday morning.

“Such activity is placing further pressure on Russia’s already strained logistics and demonstrates the difficulties Russia is having reorganising its units in forward areas within Ukraine,” the ministry said.

Britain warned that Russia was likely to continue its bombardment of Ukraine through missile strikes and mass artillery to compensate for its limited ability to operate on the ground.

The United Kingdom has sanctioned more than 1,000 individuals and businesses since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which British officials described as “unprovoked and premeditated.”

BERLIN — Germany’s Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action initiated Wednesday the “early warning” phase of an emergency plan to ensure natural gas supplies in the event of a disruption, asking people to “reduce their consumption as much as possible.”

The move, while precautionary, shows that Europe’s largest economy is bracing for the possibility that the Kremlin could shut off deliveries over a refusal to pay for the supplies in rubles.

“Security of supply is still guaranteed,” said the economics and climate minister, Robert Habeck of the Greens party. “There are currently no supply bottlenecks. Nevertheless, we must step up precautionary measures in order to be prepared in the event of an escalation from Russia.”

Russia’s ultimatum about rubles was rejected Monday by leaders from the Group of Seven major economies, who issued a joint declaration saying the demand represented a breach of contract. Meanwhile, Moscow has vowed to resolve by Thursday the practical arrangements necessary for foreign companies to use its currency, suggesting that the standoff could have major repercussions as soon as this week.

Germany’s “early warning” phase, based on a European Union regulation from 2017, means it will deploy a crisis team to monitor gas supplies. The government has resisted pressure to preemptively embargo Russian energy supplies, as the United States has done, saying that an immediate end to imports would wreak havoc on the German economy.

The Pentagon’s top officer overseeing U.S. troops in Europe, Gen. Tod D. Wolters, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday that intelligence officials may have overestimated Russia’s military ahead of its invasion of Ukraine.

Although they accurately gauged that a buildup of Russian forces in Belarus was a forerunner to the Feb. 24 invasion, U.S. intelligence assessments that the capital, Kyiv, could fall within days proved inaccurate. Moscow said Tuesday it would “drastically reduce” military activity near Kyiv, although U.S. officials are not convinced that the threat there has diminished.

Ukraine-Russia talks stir optimism, but West urges caution

Asked by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) whether there was an intelligence gap that led the United States to overestimate the Kremlin’s military and underestimate the strength of Ukraine’s resistance, Wolters responded that there “could be.”

“As we’ve always done in the past, when this crisis is over with, we will accomplish a comprehensive after-action review in all domains and in all departments and find out where our weak areas were and make sure we can find ways to improve, and this could be one of those areas,” Wolters told lawmakers.

Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian armed forces at the CNA research group in Virginia, said Russia’s poor military performance in Ukraine offers a potential lesson for the U.S. defense community on its preparedness for war with a “determined opponent that has some parity of capability.”

“Undoubtedly the U.S. is much better across the board, at organization, logistics, integration & tactics etc.,” he wrote Tuesday on Twitter. “That said, I’m not sure we appreciate the challenge of taking on a sizable, competent force, with high morale, that’s characteristically different from recent opponents” in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Russian troops continue to fight to hold their current front-line position near Kyiv, and they are likely attempting to connect gains southeast of Kharkiv with their front line in the Luhansk region.

The Kremlin on Tuesday signaled that it will keep fighting for Mariupol and said that unless “Ukrainian nationalist militants” stop resisting and lay down their arms, it will be difficult to “resolve the acute humanitarian situation” there.