Russia-Ukraine live updates: Red Cross heads towards Mariupol for evacuations; peace talks to resume

Russia’s economy could contract as much as 10 percent this year due to Western sanctions, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said in a broader regional forecast released Thursday.

The bank — which is owned by the European Union and 71 countries — predicted that the West’s reduction of Russian energy exports, combined with the country’s exclusion from the SWIFT messaging system for banks, will hurt Russian consumer incomes, choke investment, and worsen inflation. Russia’s economic growth will be zero in 2023, the EBRD said.

Russia’s currency and its banks, however, appear to be recovering from the initial impact of Western sanctions, The Washington Post reported.

Early this month, growing calls for a ban on Russian oil served the Biden administration with both a dilemma and, arguably, an opportunity. On the one hand, banning an oil source amid already-rising gas prices was far from ideal; on the other, Americans who had balked at paying more at the pump in the name of sanctioning Russia suddenly rallied to the cause. They’d pay more, they said, to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Biden appeared to not only have license to take that step — he could also use it to reinforce the narrative that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine bore blame for the ugly crooked numbers people were seeing at the pump. The White House even debuted a new talking point: the “Putin price hike.”

The reality, though, was never going to be so neat. Inflation and gas prices were already bad, and it’s a difficult task to pin their rise on a war that isn’t front-and-center for most Americans.

The United Kingdom and its partners will send more lethal aid to Ukraine, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told reporters Thursday, after a defense conference in London that included representatives from almost three dozen countries.

British media said the aid would include anti-aircraft assets, armored vehicles and long-range artillery. The latter is the “best counter” to Russia’s heavy siege of several Ukrainian cities, Wallace told reporters.

“As the tactics on the ground change, we need to change what we supply,” he said, according to Sky News.

Boris Johnson’s effusive support for Ukraine comes with complications

London has so far dispatched thousands of antitank weapons, in addition to nonlethal supplies such as body armor and rations.

Two low-flying attack helicopters swept over the southern Russian city of Belgorod early Friday, firing rockets and blowing up a fuel dump, according to Russian media.

Local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov immediately blamed Ukraine for the attack. The claim could not be verified. Video of the attack surfaced early Friday on Russian Telegram channels.

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials about the incident. Since the invasion, Ukraine has not attacked targets in Russian territory. Ukrainian forces at first mounted a defensive operation focused on Kyiv and other major cities, and in recent days have been retaking settlements near the capital and along the front line.

Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti reported that eight fuel tanks were burning, with a risk the fire could spread.

On Tuesday, a series of explosions occurred at a Belgorod ammunition dump. Russian media initially said the explosions appeared to be caused by firing from the Ukrainian side, but officials later blamed the blasts on a fire on the premises.

SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday his country will send armored vehicles to Ukraine, a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky specifically requested the mine-resistant four-wheel-drive Bushmasters in a speech to the Australian Parliament.

“We are not just sending our prayers,” Morrison told reporters. “We are sending our guns, ammunitions, we’re sending our humanitarian aid. Our body armor. All of these things. And we’re going to be sending our armored vehicles — our Bushmasters — as well.”

In his Thursday speech, Zelensky said sending the vehicles to Ukraine “would do much more for our common freedom, our common security than staying parked on your land.”

Before Zelensky’s address, which was met with a standing ovation in Canberra, Morrison announced $20 million in new military aid for Ukraine, bringing Australia’s total military assistance to around $90 million.

On Friday, Australia also formally withdrew Russia’s “most favored nation” status and introduced an additional tariff of 35 percent on all imports from Russia and Belarus.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has rattled Europe, revived the NATO military alliance and helped rekindle conflicts from the post-Soviet era, including in places such as Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory at the center of tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

It has also stirred pro-Russian sentiment in South Ossetia, a breakaway region in Georgia whose independence Moscow recognized in 2008. South Ossetian President Anatoly Bibilov said Thursday that the separatist state would take legal steps to join the Russian Federation “in the near future,” adding that he would put the issue to a referendum.

Here’s what you need to know about South Ossetia, its ambitions to become a part of Russia and how the conflict relates to the war in Ukraine.

President Biden does not have plans to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin, White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield said Thursday, adding that any conversation between the two leaders would require “serious de-escalation” by Kremlin forces in Ukraine.

“We’ve been very clear that any re-engagement of diplomacy at that level would require significant demonstration from the Russians of serious de-escalation, and we have not seen that,” Bedingfield said at a news conference. The two leaders last spoke Feb. 12, when Biden warned of “swift and severe costs” in the event Russia attacked Ukraine.

Bedingfield also announced that the Biden administration was expanding sanctions into other sectors of the Russian economy, including aerospace, maritime and electronics. That brings the number of Russian and Belarusian entities sanctioned by Washington since the Feb. 24 invasion to more than 200.

In social media posts late Thursday, the Russian ambassador in Washington accused the Biden administration of “trying to demonstrate its uncompromising attitude by recklessly expanding the illegitimate sanctions lists.”

Officials and aid workers say they are preparing to evacuate more civilians from the port city of Mariupol on Friday.

“It’s desperately important that this operation takes place,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement. “The lives of tens of thousands of people in Mariupol depend on it.”

The humanitarian group said Thursday that its teams were traveling with “relief items and medical supplies” and would be ready to lead a “safe passage operation” Friday if all parties agreed on terms.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a Telegram message that more than 600 Mariupol residents reached the Ukrainian-held inland city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday via “humanitarian corridors.” But Vereshchuk also continued to accuse Russian forces of blocking some humanitarian efforts and said Ukraine is negotiating for the return of supplies-packed buses meant to ferry people out of Melitopol, another southern city, on Friday.

A U.N. official also said Thursday that the organization has not been able to reach Mariupol and other places of great need, “despite extensive efforts.”

By Thursday evening, dozens of buses had arrived at the outskirts of the Russian-controlled city of Berdyansk to help Mariupol residents evacuate, local authorities said. Vereshchuk said more than 30 buses remain at the city entrance waiting to pick people up and take them to Zaporizhzhia on Friday morning.

Despite a cease-fire agreement meant to clear the way for civilians, part of the bus convoy was fired upon Thursday afternoon while driving toward Berdyansk, damaging at least one vehicle, according Tetiana Ignatenkova, a spokeswoman for the Donetsk regional administration.

Eugene Lakatosh and Kim Bellware contributed to this report.