Russia-Ukraine live updates: Zelensky says maternity hospital bombed, children buried under debris

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declined to echo Donald Trump’s praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a rare break by the top House Republican with the former president.

“I do not think anything’s savvy or genius about Putin,” McCarthy told reporters at his weekly news conference when asked about Trump’s comments. “I think Putin is evil. He’s a dictator. And I think he’s murdering people right now.”

During an interview on a right-wing radio program last month, Trump praised Putin’s handling of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

An 11-year-old Ukrainian boy who fled to Slovakia alone — with a plastic bag, a passport and a telephone number scrawled on his hand — was hailed by authorities. But it was not the first time fighting had uprooted the child, whose family fled Syria’s war about a decade ago.

His safe escape from Ukraine, traveling hundreds of miles by train on his own, marked a bright moment this week in a conflict that has escalated since Russian troops marched into the country. It showed “fearlessness and determination worthy of a real hero” from a boy whose smile has “won everybody’s hearts,” Slovakia’s Interior Ministry wrote on Facebook as the minister met with the child he called “Little Hassan.”

Once the boy crossed the border, volunteers used the number on his hand to contact his siblings in the Slovak capital, and they were reunited.

A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared there were no Russian conscripts serving in Ukraine and none would be sent, his Defense Ministry admitted Wednesday that wasn’t true.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov announced that “several facts” confirming the use of conscripts in Ukraine had been found.

The revelation raises questions about how much Putin knows about other problematic aspects of the war in Ukraine, including civilian casualties, Russia’s military losses and casualties, and apparent logistical and morale problems on the Russian side.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had categorically ordered the military not to send conscripts into battle in Ukraine. Putin on Wednesday ordered military prosecutors to investigate who was responsible for disobeying the order, he said.

Konashenkov offered no details on how many conscripts have been sent to Ukraine or from where. He said “almost all” conscripts in Ukraine have been withdrawn to Russia.

In recent days, officials in Ukraine have posted videos of prisoners. Many said they had been on a training mission and were not told they were going to war until the last minute. There is no way to assess whether they were coerced into speaking, and Ukraine has been criticized for releasing the videos.

Konashenkov said a number of service members, including conscripts, have been captured in Ukraine.

“Currently, comprehensive measures are being taken to prevent the deployment of conscripts to combat areas and the release of captured military personnel,” he said.

The Russian military has been highly secretive about casualties in its military operation, announcing a week ago that 498 service members were killed, with no announcements made since.

A senior U.S. military official, Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told House lawmakers Tuesday that an estimated 2,000 to 4,000 Russian service members may have been killed.

Some orchestras around the world have announced they are canceling or changing upcoming concerts featuring the music of the legendary Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The Chubu Philharmonic Orchestra in Japan said this week that it would replace Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” in a concert scheduled later this month, according to the Mainichi newspaper. The decision was made not just because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but also because the “1812 Overture” was written in celebration of Russia’s defeat of Napoleon’s invading army in 1812. In its place, the orchestra said it would perform “Finlandia,” an 1899 symphonic poem by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, Mainichi reported.

“We stand with Ukraine by following the example of this piece, which is a wish for the freedom and independence of Finland, then under Russian rule,” a Chubu official told the newspaper.

Chubu Philharmonic Orchestra’s board chairman, Takahisa Kato, added: “While there are people who can appreciate it purely as music, there are others who might question why we would perform a Russian victory hymn.”

Other orchestras have responded similarly to the invasion. The Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra in Croatia announced last month that it was removing two Tchaikovsky compositions because of the invasion.

“Due to the new situation in Ukraine that affects the whole world and brings terrifying unease, the Zagreb philharmonic orchestra … voices solidarity with the Ukrainian people and changes the program of tonight’s concert,” the orchestra said, according to Agence France-Presse.

The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra in Wales was to perform the “1812 Overture” later this month, but the orchestra said last week on Facebook that it would be “inappropriate” to perform Tchaikovsky’s music “in light of the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

The world of classical music has responded in several ways to the invasion. The Russian conductor Valery Gergiev was fired from the Munich Philharmonic orchestra March 1 because he supported Russian President Vladimir Putin and had not rejected the invasion of Ukraine.

The firm that runs the dating app Bumble is “discontinuing operations” in Russia and neighboring Belarus, the company said, removing its apps from the Apple and Google play stores in both countries.

The Bumble company, which has its own eponymous dating app, also owns Badoo and Fruitz — both of which are widely used across Europe.

Many companies around the world are halting services, advertising and events in Russia amid growing economic pressure after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Companies on the growing list of those boycotting Russia include McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, the Mercedes-Benz Group and Airbnb.

Bumble did not immediately reply to questions from The Washington Post on Wednesday, including about what led to its decision. A spokesperson pointed instead to an earnings statement from Tuesday that forecast an approximately $20 million revenue loss over the course of 2022 from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus because of the conflict and the company’s decision to restrict the availability of its apps. The company expects a $2 million hit in the first quarter.

Videos verified by The Washington Post show a series of recent confrontations between Ukrainian protesters and Russian forces throughout the Kherson region, whose capital was among the first cities that Russian troops targeted as they swept into Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s military high command told Reuters that more than 400 protesters in the region have been detained by the Russian national guard for protesting against the Russian occupation of their hometowns.

One protester cries out to the Russian forces, using an expletive to tell them to leave the country, in a video from Sunday that was verified by Storyful and confirmed by The Post. The rest of the 13-minute video shows a chaotic scene as Russian soldiers clash with protesters in Nova Kakhovka, a city in the northeast of Kherson.

Less than a minute into the video, Russian soldiers fire their rifles into the air and deploy several rounds of crowd-control munitions, including what protesters described as “gas.” Local news reports say one person was killed and several were injured.

Protests also took place earlier this week in Chaplynka, another city in the region closer to the Crimean border, as seen in at least three videos posted online Monday and verified by The Post. The videos capture the sound of gunfire as the Russian soldiers appear to fire their weapons in reaction to the crowd’s marching and chanting. Steven Beck, a veteran audio forensics analyst, said the sound of automatic gunfire in all three videos is consistent with an AK-47.

Moments after Fox News host Greg Gutfeld accused media outlets of seeking an “emotional response” in their coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the network turned to foreign affairs correspondent Benjamin Hall for a report from the battered capital, Kyiv. When he began his report, Hall took a moment Tuesday to rebuke his colleague’s dismissive punditry thousands of miles away from the war, becoming the latest Fox reporter to speak out against the network’s coverage of Ukraine.

“Speaking as someone on the ground, I want to say that this is not the media trying to drum up some emotional response,” Hall said on “The Five.” “This is absolutely what’s happening.”

Hall noted that cities such as Kharkiv and Mariupol “are being absolutely flattened,” adding: “It is an absolute catastrophe and the people caught in the middle are the ones who are really suffering.”

But when his report concluded and the show returned to the studio panel, Gutfeld turned to co-host Dana Perino and asked if he should respond to what he described as a “cheap attack.” “What do you think, Dana?” he asked. “Should I address Benjamin Hall’s cheap attack on me, or be a good co-worker and let it slide?”