Russia-Ukraine live updates: Zelensky to address U.N. Security Council; Red Cross evacuation team released

Russian forces appear to be gearing up for an offensive through the eastern city of Slovyansk in coming days that would potentially allow them to link up with other Kremlin-backed troops in the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

In their latest assessment, the think tank’s military analysts said Russian forces captured the strategically important town of Izyum on April 1 and have been stockpiling supplies, refitting damaged units, repairing a damaged bridge and conducting reconnaissance missions ahead of a likely offensive on Slovyansk “in the coming days.”

The mayor of Izyum announced Friday that Russian forces took control of the town after three weeks of ferocious fighting, but he said the battle was not over yet.

Ukraine’s Donbas region has emerged as the most critical battlefield at this point in the war, after Russian President Vladimir Putin recently withdrew his forces from around Kyiv.

In Washington, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that U.S. intelligence indicates Russia is “revising its war aims” to focus offensive operations in eastern and southern Ukraine, and he warned that the next phase of the war would probably be measured in months or more.

“We should be under no illusions that Russia will adjust its tactics, which have included and will likely continue to include wanton and brazen attacks on civilian targets,” he told reporters.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has for days been struggling to enter the devastated southern city of Mariupol to help evacuate citizens, said Tuesday that members of its team who were detained had been released.

“The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team that was held by police in Manhush on Monday was released last night,” spokeswoman Caitlin Kelly told The Washington Post by email. “This is of great relief to us and to their families.”

Kelly said the incident shows “how volatile and complex the operation to facilitate safe passage around Mariupol has been for our team, who have been trying to reach the city since Friday.” The team is now focused on continuing the humanitarian evacuation operation, she added.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a Telegram post early Tuesday that Russian forces had blocked the Red Cross convoy in Manhush, about 12 miles west of Mariupol, but had released the humanitarian workers overnight after negotiations.

Mariupol, a major port city in southeastern Ukraine, has faced the brunt of Russian bombardment. As many as 100,000 people remain trapped with little food, water or electricity.

Vereshchuk said seven humanitarian corridors would operate Tuesday, including seven buses that were due to be sent from Manhush to the city of Berdyansk, accompanied by the Red Cross, which will gather people for evacuation to Zaporizhzhia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a decree that imposes visa restrictions on citizens from countries that were included in a list of nations deemed unfriendly to Russia last month.

The move was a response to the “unfriendly actions” of foreign states and their citizens, according to the decree. The European Union, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Switzerland were among those affected by the change, which will cancel simplified visa agreements between Russia and those countries.

The Kremlin last month named nations including the United States, Canada, E.U. member states, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Switzerland as unfriendly countries after they imposed sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pariah status is only deepening in Europe amid reports of his forces carrying out suspected war crimes in Ukraine. Dozens of Russian diplomats were expelled from European capitals on Monday as more grim scenes — including images of mass graves and dead bodies scattered in the streets — emerged from the Ukrainian town of Bucha. The United States is also pushing for a vote at the United Nations General Assembly to suspend Russia from the organization’s Human Rights Council.

But over the weekend, Putin received other welcome news from the Western front. In Hungary and Serbia, illiberal nationalist leaders both cruised to reelection on Sunday. The Fidesz party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Europe’s illiberal demagogue de jour, won a comfortable two-thirds majority in parliament, giving Orban a fourth consecutive term in power. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic avoided the possibility of a runoff election by winning close to 60 percent of the vote, securing another five-year term after a decade already in power.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which monitored both elections, said that, though competitive, the votes were shaped by “an uneven playing field” that gave “undue” advantages to the ruling parties. But Putin was quick to congratulate both Orban and Vucic. In a message to the former, the Russian president expressed “confidence” that ties between Budapest and Moscow would only grow greater. And he said he hoped to build on the Kremlin’s “strategic partnership” with the latter.

TOKYO — The Japanese government said Tuesday it would provide an additional $100 million in emergency humanitarian assistance, doubling its earlier commitment as the country ramps up its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In addition, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi returned to his country on Tuesday from Poland with 20 evacuees from Ukraine, including five who arrived with no family or acquaintances in Japan.

So far, Japan has accepted at least 404 people who have fled Ukraine, a remarkable move by a country that historically not welcomed refugees.

The humanitarian assistance is intended to help Ukraine and neighboring countries affected by the Russian invasion and can be used to pay for health care, food assistance and needs. The money will be distributed through nine nongovernmental organizations.

The 20 refugees who arrived on Hayashi’s plane were previously unable to find a way to Japan and will receive government support for at least six months.

“We will provide maximum support for the evacuees so that they can live peacefully even in faraway Japan. We would like to promote our efforts together with the local governments and companies,” Hayashi said Tuesday.

Europe is united in its outrage over evidence of alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine. But the European Union is not sure what it is willing to do about it, especially when it comes to energy.

As photographs of bodies in the streets of the town of Bucha circulated online over the weekend, horrified Ukrainian and European officials called for the E.U. to finally stop buying Russian oil and gas.

Every barrel of oil and ton of gas is “soaked in the blood” of those killed, the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament said. Lithuania’s foreign minister warned other E.U. countries not to become “accomplices.”

A CNN television crew came under fire from Russian forces in southern Ukraine on Monday, surviving a close call that struck one of their cars, forcing them to cram into one vehicle to flee the area.

Footage of the incident shot by a CNN cameraman showed the crew scrambling down an embankment for cover as artillery rounds landed nearby.

“We’ve had two incoming rounds responding to artillery that’s been firing in the Russian directions,” war correspondent Benjamin Wedeman said into the camera as he crouched in the long, scrubby grass. “Those shells came pretty close to us.”

As the shelling subsided, the crew retreated to their vehicles to find one was out of action — its tires and windows blown out.

At least six journalists — Ukrainian and foreign correspondents — have been killed while working to document Russia’s war on Ukraine, now in its second month. Their deaths highlight the risks journalists face as they seek to inform people around the world from the conflict zone.

The area where the CNN crew was filming Monday is on the outskirts of the city of Mykolaiv, which has been fiercely defended by Ukrainian forces blocking Russia’s attempts to advance toward the strategically key Black Sea port of Odessa, about 70 miles southwest.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a nightly video address posted early Tuesday, doubled down on his call for a “complete” and “transparent” investigation into the massacres that have been unveiled after Russia’s withdrawal from Kyiv’s outskirts. He described scenes of devastation in Bucha, a town of 37,000 people northwest of the capital and claimed that more than 300 people were killed there.

“In many villages of the liberated districts of the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the occupiers did things that the locals had not seen even during the Nazi occupation 80 years ago,” Zelensky said. “The occupiers will definitely bear responsibility for this.”

He said he has raised the issue with Western leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Polish President Andrezj Duda.

Zelensky on Tuesday will address the U.N. Security Council, where Russia is expected to deny accusations that it committed war crimes. Moscow has dismissed the evidence of slain civilians as “staged provocations,” although international observers and journalists have already documented atrocities.

Moscow recently pulled back some troops positioned around Ukraine’s northern cities, including Kyiv and Chernihiv, as it focuses military operations in the east and south. Echoing a warning from the United States that the war is likely to be protracted, Zelensky cautioned Tuesday that his country should brace for “more brutal activity.”