Russia-Ukraine live updates: Red Cross renews Mariupol evacuation effort; U.S. boosts security aid

A cruise ship in the Netherlands will house as many as 1,500 Ukrainian refugees, the operator said Friday.

Holland America Line has sent the Volendam to dock at a cargo port in Rotterdam, where it will begin a three-month charter agreement with the city. Refugees who are staying in hotels will start moving onto the ship next week, the city said in a statement.

The cruise line — a subsidiary of Carnival Corp. — has agreed to provide three hot meals a day, private rooms, housekeeping services, fitness facilities and Internet access to the temporary residents. Holland America did not disclose terms of the agreement. The ship will have about 650 crew members on board.

The Pentagon will provide up to $300 million in military supplies to Ukraine, including drones, armored vehicles and machine guns, as part of a broader effort to boost Ukrainian forces fighting Russia’s invasion.

The aid will be sent under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a program that lets the United States procure arms directly from manufacturers instead of delivering weapons from its own stockpiles to Ukraine, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday.

The latest package shows that the assistance for Ukraine is evolving after weeks of fighting, as the United States and its partners learn more about Moscow’s assault tactics and Kyiv’s capabilities. The Pentagon said it has committed more than $1.6 billion in security assistance since Russia’s invasion. “This decision underscores the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in support of its heroic efforts to repel Russia’s war of choice,” Kirby said in a statement.

The new aid will include Puma unmanned aerial systems — hand-launched lightweight drones with a range of about a dozen miles that can fly for about two hours — providing Ukrainian infantry with extended reconnaissance capabilities. The Pentagon also intends to send Ukraine “nonstandard” machine guns, meaning the weapons aren’t regularly used by the U.S. military.

The United States will send armored Humvees, night-vision devices, thermal imagery systems, tactical secure communications systems, commercial satellite imagery services, medical supplies and Switchblade drones — small unmanned aircraft packed with explosives that crash into targets such as tanks in “kamikaze” fashion.

RIGA, Latvia — It did not take long for Russian businessman Kirill Kukkoyev to feel like he had been taken hostage by the events unfolding in neighboring Ukraine. That moment came eight days after Russia’s invasion when Swedish furniture giant Ikea announced it would halt trading in Russia the next day.

Kukkoyev had built an entire business renovating high-end apartments in St. Petersburg with Ikea fittings. He spent that final day sweating and trying to get in all his orders, hitting the payment button for the last time at two minutes to midnight, he recalled.

Then he applied to register the trademark Idea, copying Ikea’s trademark logo.

Russia appears to be pulling back troops stationed in the Kyiv area, as Ukrainian forces slowly advance and regain control of villages to the east and northwest of the capital, Britain’s Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update Saturday.

Ukrainian troops are in the process of moving toward Hostomel and Bucha, where intense clashes took place last month, British officials said. Several villages to the east of Kyiv have already been retaken.

The troop movements were also noted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said in a video posted early Saturday that Russia’s withdrawal from his country’s north was “slow but noticeable.” But he cautioned that airstrikes and shelling continue to threaten lives.

“Wait for our land to be cleared. Wait until you can be assured that new shelling is impossible,” Zelensky said.

London said Ukrainian forces also managed to secure a key path in the east of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, which has been devastated by heavy Russian shelling. More clashes could occur near Kharkiv, it warned.

BRUSSELS — The European Union on Friday called on China to help end Russia’s war in Ukraine, urging the country to abandon its tacit support for the invasion and to work for peace.

The remark came after a virtual summit between top Chinese and E.U. leaders where Brussels wanted to discuss the fallout from more than five weeks of brutal fighting. Beijing appeared less interested in doing so.

“We called on China to end the war in Ukraine,” European Council President Charles Michel told reporters in Brussels after the meeting. “China cannot turn a blind eye to Russia’s violation of international law.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday in an interview with Fox News that his country will not give up territory for a peace deal, as he reiterated his calls for other countries to “guarantee” Ukraine’s security.

Hours later, in his nightly video address, the Ukrainian leader called on the rest of the world to respond to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Mariupol, where some 100,000 civilians are trapped and lack access to basic necessities.

“We do not trade our territory,” Zelensky told Fox News’s Special Report anchor Bret Baier, ruling out any discussions of territorial integrity and sovereignty as part of a peace deal with Russia. But the president added that he is willing to put off resolving “difficult questions,” including the status of occupied territories such as Russian-annexed Crimea, a proposal that Ukraine’s negotiators outlined during talks in Istanbul.

Russia said this week it would pull back from Kyiv and Chernihiv to “create the necessary conditions for further negotiations,” though Zelensky and Western leaders remain unconvinced about the prospect of Moscow retreating in earnest as assaults on southern and eastern Ukraine continue.

But when asked by Baier whether Russia’s willingness to discuss cease-fires is a ruse to buy more time to resupply its troops, Zelensky replied that he will “gladly” accept such deals, even if they are short-lived, to provide aid and relief to the Ukrainian people.

In a further complication to a prospective peace agreement, the Kremlin has accused Ukraine of carrying out a helicopter attack Friday on a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod. Zelensky declined to comment on the incident, though military experts speculate that Kyiv was probably behind the operation.

“What matters for us is that you and the whole world should know that we are [a] country at war,” Zelensky said. “We were attacked. That is what matters.”

The Ukrainian leader also doubled down on his plea that the U.S.-led Western bloc provide more military aid, arguing that even being armed with Soviet-manufactured planes could booster the Ukrainian defense. “Get them into my hands. Give me something to defend my country with,” he said.

On Friday, the Pentagon announced a new $300 million security assistance package that will equip Ukraine with drones, counter-drone systems and access to commercial satellite imagery services.

RIGA, Latvia — The Russian military began its spring draft Friday, aiming to sign up 134,500 conscripts and stoking fears among young men that they may end up on the front lines of the invasion of Ukraine.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has vowed that none of them will be used to reinforce Russian troops now fighting in Ukraine. “Please note that conscripts will not be deployed to any hot spots,” he said in televised remarks on Tuesday, adding that those who were drafted last spring will be discharged and sent home at the end of their one-year service.

But amid significant losses suffered by Russian forces in their Ukrainian campaign, which appears to have lasted longer than the Kremlin anticipated, Shoigu’s assurances have not put all prospective conscripts and their families at ease.

Human rights groups and lawyers say that since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, they have been receiving a barrage of calls from eligible men, their wives, girlfriends and mothers seeking legal help in avoiding the draft.

A fire at an oil depot in Belgorod, a southern Russian city located roughly 25 miles from the border with Ukraine, will probably further strain the Russian military’s already tight supply lines in the near term, the British Defense Ministry said in a Friday intelligence update.

The fire — which Russia blamed on a Ukrainian helicopter attack — as well as a blast at an ammunition depot near Belgorod this week could particularly affect Russian forces attacking the nearby Ukrainian city of Kharkhiv, the Defense Ministry said.

Ukrainian officials would not confirm or deny the attack, suggesting that it could have been a Russian error or even linked to Russian helicopter pilots who had refused to fly into Ukraine. Some military experts say Ukraine is probably responsible for the attacks, The Washington Post reported.