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U.S. unveils new nuclear stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider

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America’s newest nuclear stealth bomber made its debut Friday after years of secret development, and as part of the Pentagon’s answer to rising concerns over a future conflict with China.

The B-21 Raider is the first new American bomber aircraft in more than 30 years. Almost every aspect of the program is classified.

As evening fell over the Air Force’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, the public got its first glimpse of the Raider in a tightly controlled ceremony. It started with a flyover of the three bombers still in service: the B-52 Stratofortress, the B-1 Lancer and the B-2 Spirit. Then the hangar doors slowly opened and the B-21 was towed partially out of the building. 

The U.S. Air Force on Dec. 2, 2022, unveiled the B-21 Raider in Palmdale, California. It is the first American bomber aircraft in more than 30 years. 

U.S. Air Force


“This isn’t just another airplane,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. “It’s the embodiment of America’s determination to defend the republic that we all love.”

The B-21 is part of the Pentagon’s efforts to modernize all three legs of its nuclear triad, which includes silo-launched nuclear ballistic missiles and submarine-launched warheads, as it shifts from the counterterrorism campaigns of recent decades to meet China’s rapid military modernization.

China is on track to have 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, and its gains in hypersonics, cyber warfare and space capabilities present “the most consequential and systemic challenge to U.S. national security and the free and open international system,” the Pentagon said this week in its annual China report.

“We needed a new bomber for the 21st Century that would allow us to take on much more complicated threats, like the threats that we fear we would one day face from China, Russia, ” said Deborah Lee James, the Air Force secretary when the Raider contract was announced in 2015.

While the Raider may resemble the B-2, once you get inside, the similarities stop, said Kathy Warden, chief executive of Northrop Grumman Corp., which is building the bomber.

“The way it operates internally is extremely advanced compared to the B-2, because the technology has evolved so much in terms of the computing capability that we can now embed in the software of the B-21,” Warden said.

Other changes include advanced materials used in coatings to make the bomber harder to detect, Austin said.

“Fifty years of advances in low-observable technology have gone into this aircraft,” Austin said. “Even the most sophisticated air defense systems will struggle to detect a B-21 in the sky.”

Other advances likely include new ways to control electronic emissions, so the bomber could spoof adversary radars and disguise itself as another object, and use of new propulsion technologies, several defense analysts said.

“It is incredibly low observability,” Warden said. “You’ll hear it, but you really won’t see it.”

Six Raiders are in production. The Air Force plans to build 100 that can deploy either nuclear weapons or conventional bombs, and can be used with or without a human crew. Both the Air Force and Northrop also point to the Raider’s relatively quick development: The bomber went from contract award to debut in seven years. Other new fighter and ship programs have taken decades.

The cost of the bombers is unknown. The Air Force previously put the price at an average cost of $550 million each in 2010 dollars – roughly $753 million today — but it’s unclear how much is actually being spent. The total will depend on how many bombers the Pentagon buys.

“We will soon fly this aircraft, test it, and then move it into production. And we will build the bomber force in numbers suited to the strategic environment ahead,” Austin said.

The undisclosed cost troubles government watchdogs.

“It might be a big challenge for us to do our normal analysis of a major program like this,” said Dan Grazier, a senior defense policy fellow at the Project on Government Oversight. “It’s easy to say that the B-21 is still on schedule before it actually flies. Because it’s only when one of these programs goes into the actual testing phase when real problems are discovered.” That, he said, is when schedules start to slip and costs rise.

The B-2 was also envisioned to be a fleet of more than 100 aircraft, but the Air Force built only 21, due to cost overruns and a changed security environment after the Soviet Union fell. Fewer than that are ready to fly on any given day due to the significant maintenance needs of the aging bomber.

The B-21 Raider, which takes its name from the 1942 Doolittle Raid over Tokyo, will be slightly smaller than the B-2 to increase its range, Warden said. It won’t make its first flight until 2023. However, Warden said Northrop Grumman has used advanced computing to test the bomber’s performance using a digital twin, a virtual replica of the one unveiled Friday.

Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota will house the bomber’s first training program and squadron, though the bombers are also expected to be stationed at bases in Texas and Missouri.

Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican of South Dakota, led the state’s bid to host the bomber program. In a statement, he called it “the most advanced weapon system ever developed by our country to defend ourselves and our allies.”

Northrop Grumman has also incorporated maintenance lessons learned from the B-2, Warden said.

In October 2001, B-2 pilots set a record when they flew 44 hours straight to drop the first bombs in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. The B-2 often does long round-trip missions because there are few hangars globally that can accommodate its wingspan, which limits where it can land for maintenance. The hangars also must be air-conditioned because the Spirit’s windows don’t open and hot climates can cook cockpit electronics.

The new Raider will also get new hangars to accommodate its size and complexity, Warden said.

However, with the Raider’s extended range, ‘it won’t need to be based in-theater,” Austin said. “It won’t need logistical support to hold any target at risk.”

A final noticeable difference was in the debut itself. While both went public in Palmdale, the B-2 was rolled outdoors in 1988 amid much public fanfare. Given advances in surveillance satellites and cameras, the Raider was just partially exposed, keeping its sensitive propulsion systems and sensors under the hangar and protected from overhead eyes.

“The magic of the platform,” Warden said, “is what you don’t see.”

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Senior White House Official Involved in Undisclosed Talks With Top Putin Aides

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WASHINGTON—President Biden’s top national-security adviser has engaged in recent months in confidential conversations with top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to reduce the risk of a broader conflict over Ukraine and warn Moscow against using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, U.S. and allied officials said.

The officials said that U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan has been in contact with

Yuri Ushakov,

a foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Putin. Mr. Sullivan also has spoken with his direct counterpart in the Russian government,

Nikolai Patrushev,

the officials added.
The aim has been to guard against the risk of escalation and keep communications channels open, and not to discuss a settlement of the war in Ukraine, the officials said.

Asked whether Mr. Sullivan has engaged in undisclosed conversations with Messrs. Ushakov or Patrushev, National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said: “People claim a lot of things” and declined to comment further. The Kremlin didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The White House hasn’t publicly acknowledged any calls between Mr. Sullivan and any senior Russian official since March, when he spoke with Mr. Patrushev.

The unpublicized discussions come as traditional diplomatic contacts between Washington and Moscow have dwindled and Mr. Putin and his aides have hinted he might resort to using nuclear arms to protect Russian territory, as well as gains made in his invasion of Ukraine this year.

Despite its support for Ukraine and punitive measures against Russia for the invasion, the White House has said that maintaining some level of contact with Moscow is imperative for achieving certain mutual national-security interests.

Several U.S. officials said that Mr. Sullivan is known within the administration as pushing for a line of communication with Russia, even as other top policy makers feel that talks in the current diplomatic and military environment wouldn’t be fruitful.

Officials didn’t provide the precise dates and number of the calls or say whether they had been productive.

Some former American officials said that it was useful for the White House to maintain contact with the Kremlin as U.S.-Russian relations are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

“I think it’s always important, especially for nuclear-armed countries, to maintain open channels of communication to help understand what each side is thinking and thereby avoid the possibility of an accidental confrontation or war,” said

Ivo Daalder,

who served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Obama administration. “National-security advisers are the closest conduit to the Oval Office without bringing the president directly into that communication channel.”

The U.S. national-security adviser has had confidential conversations with top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin to warn Moscow against using nuclear weapons.



Photo:

Evgeny Biyatov/Associated Press

President Biden sought to forge a working relationship with Mr. Putin during his first year in office, which culminated in a summit in Geneva in June 2021. Those talks touched on Ukraine, where the sides had clear differences, among an array of other subjects.

By October, however, U.S. intelligence indicated that Russian forces were preparing to invade Ukraine. CIA Director

William Burns

was sent to Moscow in early November 2021 to warn Mr. Putin against an invasion.

Mr. Biden spoke twice with Mr. Putin in December 2021 and again in February 2022 to try to avert a Russian attack while U.S. diplomats engaged with their Russian counterparts.

After Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, however, diplomatic and military contacts between the two sides became infrequent.

Officials said Mr. Sullivan has taken a leading role in coordinating the Biden administration’s policy and plans in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—something that is expected of the president’s top national-security adviser. However, he has also been involved in diplomatic efforts, including a visit to Kyiv on Friday to speak with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Defense Minister

Oleksii Reznikov,

meetings traditionally handled by the secretaries of state or defense.

Mr. Sullivan has spoken to Ukraine’s leadership, urging them to publicly signal their willingness to resolve the conflict, a U.S. official said. The U.S. isn’t pushing Ukraine to negotiate, the official added, but rather to show allies that it is seeking a resolution to the conflict, which has affected world oil and food prices.

The Washington Post earlier reported efforts by Mr. Sullivan to persuade Ukrainian officials to seek a resolution.

When Mr. Putin and his senior aides hinted in September that Russia might use nuclear weapons if his forces were pushed into a corner, Mr. Sullivan said that the Biden administration had “communicated directly, privately at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia.”

The White House had declined to say how that warning was communicated.

The Pentagon said U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with Russia’s defense minister and stressed the importance of maintaining lines of communication.



Photo:

Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

Secretary of Defense

Lloyd Austin

and several of his allied counterparts spoke this past month with Russian Defense Minister

Sergei Shoigu

as Moscow claimed Kyiv was preparing to use a so-called dirty bomb against it, something Ukrainian and Western officials have denied.

Mr. Austin initiated the initial call, which was their first discussion since May, to stress the importance of maintaining lines of communication, the Pentagon said. Mr. Shoigu initiated the second.

Mr. Ushakov, the foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Putin, has served as an ambassador in Washington and is regarded by former and current U.S. officials as a conduit to the Russian leader.

Mr. Burns met with Mr. Ushakov in November 2021 during his visit to Moscow before speaking with Mr. Putin. Mr. Sullivan spoke again with Mr. Ushakov in December.

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In his March conversation with Mr. Patrushev, which the White House described, Mr. Sullivan told the Russian official that Moscow’s forces should stop attacking Ukrainian cities and towns and warned the Kremlin not to use chemical or biological weapons.

Mr. Patrushev, who entered the KGB in the 1970s and rose to become director of the Federal Security Service from 1999 to 2008, is regarded by American officials as a hard-liner who shares many of Mr. Putin’s suspicions about the U.S.

A Russian statement about the March conversation between Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Patrushev said that it took place at the initiative of the U.S., and that Mr. Patrushev has stressed “the need to stop Washington’s support of neo-Nazis and terrorists in Ukraine and facilitate the transfer of foreign mercenaries to the conflict zone, as well as refuse to continue supplying weapons to the Kiev regime.”

Even as relations between Washington and Moscow have deteriorated, the U.S. has sought to preserve some areas of cooperation, especially on strategic arms control and the International Space Station.

Washington and Moscow have adhered to the New START treaty, which limits long-range U.S. and Russian nuclear arms and is due to expire in 2026.

U.S. and Russian officials are planning to hold meetings of the Bilateral Consultative Commission, which was established by the New START treaty to discuss its implementation, according to U.S. officials and a Russian media report. One aim is to discuss resuming inspections under New START that were suspended when the Covid-19 pandemic began, U.S. officials say.

While Switzerland had been the traditional host nation for such talks, Moscow has said that it no longer considers it a neutral country because, like other European nations, it has imposed economic sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Western sanctions have also complicated the Russians’ travel arrangements, so plans are being made to hold the meeting in Cairo in late November, the officials said.

The State Department and the Russian government declined to comment on the meetings, which aren’t generally announced in advance.

—Nancy A. Youssef contributed to this article.

Write to Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com and Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com

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World

Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

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Putin claims the West was ‘preparing for the invasion of our land’

Russian honour guards march on Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2022.

Kirill Kudryavtsev | Afp | Getty Images

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has attempted to justify his unpreceded invasion of Ukraine on “Victory Day” — one of the most important events on the country’s national calendar.

The West was “preparing for the invasion of our land, including Crimea,” Putin said without providing evidence, according to a Reuters translation. He added that NATO was creating threats at Russia’s borders.

Speaking before a massive parade of troops, tanks and military hardware in Moscow, Putin also doubled down on Russia’s strategy of focusing on the eastern Donbass region.

“You are fighting for your Motherland, its future,” he said to pro-Russian separatist fighters, based in the Donetsk and Luhansk areas of the region.

After initially targeting the north, east and south of Ukraine in its invasion, Russia switched its strategy and objectives in late March after making few territorial gains.

It announced it was withdrawing from areas around Kyiv and the north and would instead focus on the “liberation” of the Donetsk and Luhansk areas.

Russia launched an unprecedented invasion of its neighbor Ukraine on Feb. 24, after amassing some 190,000 troops on the borders in the weeks before. There was little evidence of military aggression from Ukraine toward Russia, and Moscow’s claims to the contrary were seen by many as a pretext for justifying the invasion.

—Katrina Bishop

Russia prepares for ‘Victory Day’ parades across the country

Topol-M mobile launchers of intercontinental ballistic missiles on the streets of Moscow during a Victory Day parade rehearsal. The final night rehearsal is one of the main runs before the actual event scheduled for May 9.

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Russia is set to hold its massive “Victory Day” military parades on Monday, with 28 Russian cities set to hold military marches to mark the 77th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Over 65,000 people will take part in them and about 2,400 armament and material units will be presented, Russia news agency Tass reported. The largest parade is held in Moscow and is expected to be presided over by President Vladimir Putin.

In a recorded speech to Group of Seven leaders Sunday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that while May 8 (Victory in Europe Day) “was a key day of remembrance for all the victims of World War II, for the fragility of peace and the inadmissibility of any anti-humanist regimes. But what is remembrance for others today, for our people is, unfortunately, just news, every day.”

He said a Russian bomb had killed 60 civilians in a village in Luhansk, saying the victims were hiding from shelling in a school which was attacked by a Russian air strike.

He said Russia was imitating “precisely the evil that the Nazis brought to Europe.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Ukraine ambassador to the U.S.: ‘We are preparing for everything’ ahead of Russia’s ‘Victory Day’

Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S. said Sunday that the nation is making preparations ahead of Russia’s Victory Day.

Russian officers march during a rehearsal of the Victory Day parade on May 7, 2022 in Moscow, Russia.

Tiang Bin | China News Service | Getty Images

“We know that there are no red lines for the regime in Moscow, so we are preparing for everything,” Oksana Markarova said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“We can count that Putin and imperialistic Russia will do everything bad they can possibly try to do. The question is, are we all prepared — the civilized world — to do everything possible to defend our democracy and freedom,” she said.

Monday’s “Victory Day” is a key date for Russia. It marks the then-Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II in 1945.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to make a speech tomorrow, with massive military parades through the center of Moscow also expected.

— Pippa Stevens, Holly Ellyatt

Jill Biden pays surprise visit to Ukraine, meets first lady

First lady Jill Biden receives flowers from Olena Zelenska, spouse of Ukrainian’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, outside of School 6, a public school that has taken in displaced students in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, Sunday, May 8, 2022.

Susan Walsh | AP

U.S. first lady Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine, holding a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with the nation’s first lady, Olena Zelenskyy, as Russia presses its punishing war in the eastern regions.

Biden traveled under the cloak of secrecy, becoming the latest high-profile American to enter Ukraine during its 10-week-old conflict with Russia.

U.S. first lady Jill Biden meets with Olena Zelenska, wife of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at School 6, a public school that has taken in displaced students in Uzhhorod, Slovakia, May 8, 2022.

Susan Walsh | Reuters

Her visit follows recent stops in the war-torn country by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress, as well as a joint trip by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

The first lady traveled by vehicle to the town of Uzhhorod from a Slovakian village that borders Ukraine.

— The Associated Press

Dozens feared dead after bomb hits school in Luhansk region

Ukrainian soldiers carry the coffins of Yuri Samofalov, Yuriy Varyanytsya and Alexander Malevsky, 3 Ukrainian soldiers who fallen during the fights against Russia as they arrive at the Church of the Most Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Lviv, Ukraine on May 06, 2022.

Omar Marques | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, said Sunday that at least two people had died after the bombing of a school.

Haidai said, according to a Reuters translation, that the bombing occurred Saturday afternoon where 90 people had been sheltering. He said 30 had been rescued with around 60 still likely to be under the debris and feared dead.

Luhansk is one of the two regions that make up the Donbas — in the east of Ukraine — where Russian troops are now concentrating their efforts.

The Associated Press added that the school was located in the village of Bilogorivka. Rescue work is ongoing.

NBC News was not able to independently verify the reports.

“The fire was extinguished after nearly four hours, then the rubble was cleared, and, unfortunately, the bodies of two people were found,” Haidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app, according to Sky News.

“Thirty people were evacuated from the rubble, seven of whom were injured. Sixty people were likely to have died under the rubble of buildings.” 

—Matt Clinch

Read CNBC’s previous live coverage here:

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World

Russia Suffers Another Fire at a Supply Depot as It Advances in Eastern Ukraine

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An ammunition depot caught fire near Russia’s border with Ukraine, a local official said, the latest in a series of incidents to afflict Russian military facilities in regions adjacent to Ukraine in recent weeks that could pressure supply lines to Russian forces.

The fire at the depot in a village near Belgorod, around 15 miles from the border, was extinguished by early morning Wednesday, according to

Vyacheslav Gladkov,

the regional governor.

Authorities also reported blasts in Russia’s Kursk and Voronezh regions, which are adjacent to Ukraine. The regions’ governors said air-defense systems shot down drones in the early hours of Wednesday.

An ammunition depot in Russia caught fire, after explosions at Ukraine’s border with Moldova raised concerns that the war may spill over; a monument to Russian-Ukrainian friendship was taken down in Kyiv; Poland responded to Russia halting gas supplies. Photo credit: Konstantinos Tsakalidis/Bloomberg News

The incidents follow a series of similar events in recent weeks in the regions neighboring eastern Ukraine, where Russia is attempting to seize territory. Russian officials said two Ukrainian helicopters struck an oil-storage facility on the outskirts of Belgorod on April 1. Fires broke out at two fuel-storage depots in the Bryansk region on Monday.

Russia said the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet, the missile cruiser Moskva, sank in a storm after an ammunition explosion on board on April 14, while the U.S. said it was struck by Ukrainian missiles.

Ukrainian officials have hinted at some involvement in the incidents without expressly acknowledging them.

Russia’s Federal Security Service released this image Wednesday, reporting the detention of two Russian citizens it said were planning to sabotage a facility in Belgorod.



Photo:

FSB/TASS via Zuma Press

“Belgorod, ‘Moskva,’ Bryansk. Constant ‘production incidents.’ How can we not believe in karma for the murder of [Ukrainian] children?”

Mykhailo Podolyak,

a Ukrainian presidential adviser, wrote on Twitter on Monday.

Keir Giles,

a Russian security expert at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Russia often suffers from accidents and disasters related to negligence and other factors, so the involvement of Ukraine was unclear so long as it didn’t take responsibility for the incidents.

“The system suffers from self-inflicted injuries in peacetime,” said Mr. Giles. “When put under additional strain of an offensive war, it is no surprise that the rate of natural accidents should increase.”

A fire raged at an oil-storage facility in Russia’s border region of Bryansk earlier this week.



Photo:

Kirill Ivanov/Zuma Press

Russia, meanwhile, said it halted gas flows to Poland and Bulgaria beginning Wednesday, marking a significant escalation in the economic conflict between Moscow and the West. Moscow has been trying to strengthen its faltering currency by insisting customers pay in rubles, raising the prospect that Russia could shut off gas flows to other European countries in response to the sweeping economic sanctions imposed by the West for its invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s finance minister,

Anton Siluanov,

said Wednesday that Russia’s oil production this year could decline by as much as 17% due to the sanctions.

Ursula von der Leyen,

president of the European Commission, decried the announcement from Russian gas company Gazprom as blackmail and said European Union states are working to secure alternative sources of energy and coordinate storage plans across the bloc.

“This is unjustified and unacceptable,” she said. “And it shows once again the unreliability of Russia as a gas supplier.”

Russian President

Vladimir Putin

on Wednesday again warned of dire consequences for any country that intends to “interfere in the ongoing events from the outside and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us,” in remarks to the Russian Federal Assembly’s Council of Legislators in Russia’s second city of St. Petersburg.

“They should know that our response to counter strikes will be lightning fast,” Mr. Putin said.

Russia’s Foreign Minister

Sergei Lavrov

had told Russian media on Monday that the West was now engaged in a proxy war with Russia by arming and assisting Ukraine, and that it could escalate into a global conflict with nuclear weapons.

U.S. Defense Secretary

Lloyd Austin,

speaking to reporters at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Tuesday, said “any bluster about the possible use of nuclear weapons is dangerous and unhelpful.”

People lined up Wednesday at a food distribution center in Zaporizhzhia, in southeastern Ukraine.



Photo:

ed jones/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Workers attempted on Tuesday to restore energy, water and internet in the Kyiv-area town of Borodyanka, which was heavily bombed last month.



Photo:

Justyna Mielnikiewicz/MAPS for The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Austin met with defense officials from more than 40 countries in Germany and said that the U.S. and its allies would continue to meet Ukraine’s needs, adding that the stakes of the conflict “reach beyond Ukraine and even Europe.”

Russia’s Federal Security Service, meanwhile, said Wednesday that two Russian citizens were detained as they were allegedly preparing to sabotage a transport-infrastructure site in Belgorod. The agency said the suspects were supporters of Ukrainian nationalists and had sent data about Russian servicemen participating in Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine to the Kyiv-based Peacemaker, a website that publishes the personal information of people who allegedly commit crimes against Ukraine and the country’s national security.

The Wall Street Journal couldn’t independently verify the agency’s report of an attempted sabotage.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that its forces had launched high-precision, long-range sea-based Kalibr missiles at the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, where they destroyed hangars at an aluminum plant containing a “large batch of foreign weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States and European countries for Ukrainian troops.” Russian defense officials said their air force hit 59 military facilities in Ukraine overnight, while Russian air-defense systems shot down 18 Ukrainian drones and a Ukrainian tactical Tochka-U missile. Russia’s claims couldn’t be independently verified.

The U.K.’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that Russian air power is primarily focused on southern and eastern Ukraine, providing support for Russian ground forces as they gradually advance. “Russia has very limited air access to the north and west of Ukraine, limiting offensive actions to deep strikes with stand-off weapons,” it said.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, meanwhile, said Russia had made some advances in the east, where it is pressing a new offensive after its initial attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, and remove President

Volodymyr Zelensky

failed. Russian forces seized one village and took the outskirts of another as they tried to surround Ukrainian units in the east, where Ukraine has been fighting against Russian proxy forces since 2014.

Russia is refocusing its offensive in Ukraine on the Donbas region, following setbacks in Kyiv and other northern cities, where it was thwarted in the air and on the ground. But military experts say the landscape of the east could be advantageous for Moscow. Photo Illustration: Laura Kammermann

Russian forces are also attempting to widen a land bridge from Russian-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region to the Crimean Peninsula in the south, which Moscow annexed eight years ago.

Concerns are growing that neighboring Moldova, another former Soviet republic, could be dragged into the conflict. The breakaway pro-Russian enclave of Transnistria on Wednesday reported gunfire and drones spotted over a village near its border with Ukraine after it said three separate attacks earlier this week targeted a Transnistrian military base, two radio towers and the headquarters of its state security service. The village, Cobasna, hosts what it says is Europe’s largest ammunition depot. No casualties were reported in any of the incidents, but they have stirred concerns that the 1,500 Russian troops stationed in Transnistria could be deployed in western Ukraine.

Moldova has been on edge since the Russian invasion of Ukraine put it on the border of an active war zone, potentially inflaming Moldova’s relationship with Transnistria. The narrow strip of land was carved out of Moldova after a civil war in 1992 and is held by pro-Russian nationalists. Many in the population of 350,000 hold Russian passports.

Diplomatic efforts to end the Ukraine conflict appear to be moving slowly. United Nations Secretary-General

António Guterres

met with Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. After the meeting, Mr. Lavrov blamed the war on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s expansion and accused the West of attempting to create an alternative global governance outside the U.N.

Mr. Guterres is scheduled to meet with Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv on Thursday.

—Matthew Luxmoore contributed to this article.

Write to James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com and Ann M. Simmons at ann.simmons@wsj.com

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Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

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U.K. dismisses Lavrov’s ‘bravado,’ says there’s no imminent threat of nuclear war

Britain’s armed forces minister has played down Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s warning that the war with Ukraine could escalate into a nuclear one.

Lavrov said late on Monday that the risks of nuclear war are now “very, very significant and should not be underestimated” but the remarks were dismissed as “bravado” by U.K. minister James Heappey.

“Lavrov’s trademark over the course of 15 years or so that he has been the Russian foreign secretary has been that sort of bravado. I don’t think that right now there is an imminent threat of escalation,” James Heappey told the BBC Breakfast program on Tuesday.

When asked about whether Russia would use a tactical nuclear weapon, Heappey said he thinks there’s a “vanishingly small” possibility of that sort of escalation.

— Holly Ellyatt

City of Kreminna believed to have fallen to Russian forces

The snow-bound city of Kreminna, which is believed to have fallen to Russian forces, is seen here from a birds eye view. The city is located in the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine.

Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty Images

The city of Kreminna in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine is believed to have fallen to Russian forces, according to the latest intelligence update from the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence on Tuesday.

“The city of Kreminna has reportedly fallen and heavy fighting is reported south of Izium, as Russian forces attempt to advance towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north and east,” the ministry said has said in an update on Twitter, though it did not give any more details.

Russian forces are likely attempting to encircle heavily fortified Ukrainian positions in the east of Ukraine, the ministry said, adding that Ukrainian forces have been preparing defences in Zaporizhzhia, a city on the Dnipro river in southeastern Ukraine, in preparation for a potential Russian attack.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia and India were reportedly in talks to restart coking coal trade

A worker walks atop a pile of coal at a coal yard near a mine on November 23, 2021 in India. Russian and Indian officials met last week hoping to resolve coking coal supply issues, a trade source and an Indian government source said, according to Reuters.

Ritesh Shukla | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Officials from Russia and India met last week in hopes of resolving coking coal supply issues, Reuters reported citing sources.

Russian coking coal exports to Indian steelmakers have stalled since March due to payment methods, a trade source and an Indian government source said, according to Reuters. That’s despite New Delhi signing a plan last year to import coking coal from Russia.

Coking coal is essential in the production of steel, and Russia typically supplies about 30% of the coking needs of the European Union, Japan and South Korea.

Russian trade officials are reportedly concerned about the sanctions from the West and requested that India continue with the deal, the sources said.

Indian officials were invited to visit Russia to strategize how to secure smooth shipments of coking coal, sources said, according to Reuters.  

— Chelsea Ong

Risk of nuclear war now ‘very, very significant,’ Russia’s foreign minister says

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during a news conference after his talks with Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani in Moscow, Russia, April 7, 2022. 

Alexander Zemlianichenko | Reuters

The risks of nuclear war are now very significant and should not be underestimated, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a Russian TV channel on Monday.

“The risks are really very, very significant,” Lavrov told Channel One. However, he also added that there was a danger the risks were being “artificially” inflated.

“The danger is serious, it is real, it cannot be underestimated,” Lavrov said in comments reported by Russia’s Ria Novosti news agency.

— Holly Ellyatt

UK says Ukraine’s grain harvest is likely to be about 20% lower than in 2021

A wheat sample being inspected on March, 18, 2022. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has “significantly” disrupted Ukrainian agricultural production, the British defense ministry said in an intelligence update.

Shannon VanRaes | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Russia’s invasion has “significantly” disrupted Ukrainian agricultural production, the British defense ministry said in an intelligence update.

“The Ukrainian grain harvest for 2022 is likely to be around 20 per cent lower than 2021 due to reduced sowing areas following the invasion,” the U.K. ministry said.

Reduced grain supply from Ukraine — the world’s fourth largest producer and exporter of agricultural goods — would not only cause inflationary pressures and elevate the global price of grain, but also impact global food markets, the ministry said.

Grain prices have surged since the invasion began, and Morgan Stanley expects grain prices to remain above last year’s levels till 2023.

“High grain prices could have significant implications for global food markets and threaten global food security, particularly in some of the least economically developed countries,” the British ministry said.

— Chelsea Ong

‘We want to see Russia weakened,’ U.S. Defense Secretary Austin says

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attends a meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine April 24, 2022. 

Ukrainian Presidential Press Service | Reuters

Washington wants to see Russia “weakened” as part of its aims in arming and supporting Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday during a visit to Kyiv, the first such high-level visit from a U.S. official since the war began.

“We want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country able to defend its sovereign territory. We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it cannot do the kinds of things it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin told the press.

“It has already lost a lot of military capability, and a lot of its troops, quite frankly. In terms of our — their ability to win, the first step in winning is believing that you can win. And so, they believe that they can win, we believe that they can win, if they have the right equipment.”

The visit saw the U.S. pledge more military and diplomatic support to Ukraine as the Russian invasion entered its 60th day.

— Natasha Turak

Schumer expects ‘swift, bipartisan’ passage of next Ukraine aid bill

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he expected “swift, bipartisan” passage of another bill to aid Ukraine in its fight against Russia once President Joe Biden submits a new funding request.

— Reuters

Mariupol officials say new mass grave found

Maxar satellite imagery of another mass grave site expansion just outside of Vynohradne, Ukraine — just east of Mariupol. Sequence — 3 of 4 images.

Maxar Technologies | Getty Images

Officials in the embattled Ukrainian city of Mariupol say a new mass grave has been identified north of the city.

Mayor Vadym Boychenko said authorities are trying to estimate the number of victims in the grave about 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) north of Mariupol.

Satellite photos released over the past several days have shown what appear to be images of other mass graves.

Mariupol has been decimated by fierce fighting over the past two months. The capture of the city would deprive Ukraine of a vital port and allow Moscow to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.

— Associated Press

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Blinken and Austin sneak into Ukraine’s capital to meet with Zelenskyy

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Near the Polish-Ukrainian border — After a secrecy-shrouded visit to Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken said Russia is failing in its war aims and “Ukraine is succeeding.” The trip by Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was the highest-level American visit to Ukraine’s capital since Russia invaded in late February.

The top officials from Washington told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his advisers that the U.S. would provide more than $300 million in foreign military financing, and had already approved a $165 million sale of ammunition.

“We had an opportunity to demonstrate directly our strong ongoing support for the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people. This was, in our judgment, an important moment to be there to have face-to-face conversations in detail,” Blinken told reporters Monday near the Polish-Ukrainian border, after returning from Kyiv.

Image provided by Pentagon shows U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, left, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on April 24, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Department of Defense via AP


Austin said Zelenskyy’s response to the aid was deep appreciation for what was being given, but “he has the mindset that they want to win and we have the mindset that we want to help them win.” The American defense chief said victory, from the U.S. perspective, would include seeing Russia “weakened” militarily.

In video of the meeting released later by the Zelenskyy’s office, Blinken praises the Ukrainian leader for the “extraordinary courage and leadership and success that you’ve had in pushing back this horrific Russian aggression.”

“We got used to seeing you on video around the world, but it’s great, it’s good to see you in person,” Blinken says with a smile.

Blinken also said U.S. diplomats returning to Ukraine likely would restaff the consulate in Lviv, in western Ukraine, before returning to the capital. They previously said the diplomats would start returning this week. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv will remain closed for the time being.

Austin said at the news conference that “the world has been inspired” by Ukraine during the war, and that America would continue its support.

“What you’ve done in repelling the Russians in the battle of Kyiv is extraordinary,” he said.

Zelenskyy had announced Saturday that he would meet with the U.S. officials in Kyiv on Sunday, but the Biden administration refused to confirm that and declined to discuss details of a possible visit even though planning had been underway for more than a week.

Journalists who traveled with Austin and Blinken to Poland were barred from reporting on the trip until it ended, weren’t allowed to accompany them on their overland journey into Ukraine, and were prohibited from specifying where in southeast Poland they waited for the U.S. cabinet members to return. Officials at the State Department and the Pentagon cited security concerns.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speak with reporters in Poland, near Ukraine’s border,  on April 25, 2022, after returning from their secret trip to Kyiv, Ukraine and meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Alex Brandon / AP


Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Monday that Ukrainian troops holed up in a steel plant in the strategic port city of Mariupol were tying down Russian forces and keeping them from being added to the offensive elsewhere in the Donbas.

The ministry added that, so far, Russia has only made “minor advances in some areas since shifting its focus to fully occupying the Donbas,” the eastern industrial heartland where Moscow-backed separatists controlled some territory before the war. 

With Russia’s shift in focus, Austin said Ukraine’s military needs are changing, and Zelenskyy is now focused on more tanks, artillery and other munitions.
 
“The nature of the fight has evolved, because the terrain they’re now focused on is a different type of terrain, so they need long-range fires,” Austin said.
 
Asked about what the U.S. sees as success, Austin said that “we want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country able to protect its sovereign territory. We want to see Russia weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine.”

U.S. Ambassador Bridget Brink

U.S. State Department/Handout


On the diplomatic front, Blinken gave Zelenskyy an early heads-up about Mr. Biden’s Monday morning announcement of his nomination of veteran diplomat Bridget Brink to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. 

A career foreign service officer, Brink has served since 2019 as ambassador to Slovakia. She previously held assignments in Serbia, Cyprus, Georgia and Uzbekistan as well as with the White House National Security Council. The post requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was scheduled to travel to Turkey on Monday, meanwhile, and then on to Moscow and Kyiv. 

Zelenskyy said it was a mistake for Guterres to visit Russia before Ukraine. “Why? To hand over signals from Russia? What should we look for?” Zelenskyy said Saturday. “There are no corpses scattered on the Kutuzovsky Prospect,” he said, referring to one of Moscow’s main avenues.

In a boost in support for Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron comfortably won a second term Sunday, beating far-right challenger Marine Le Pen who had pledged to dilute France’s ties with the European Union and NATO. Le Pen had also spoken out against EU sanctions against Russian energy and had faced scrutiny during the campaign over her previous friendliness with the Kremlin.

To Ukraine’s north, on the Russian side of the border, a fire erupted early Monday at an oil depot, but no immediate cause was given for the blaze in oil storage tanks.

Austin and Blinken announced a total of $713 million in foreign military financing for Ukraine and 15 allied and partner countries; some $322 million is earmarked for Kyiv. The remainder will be split among NATO members and other nations that have provided Ukraine with critical military supplies since the war with Russia began, officials said.

Such financing is different from previous U.S. military assistance for Ukraine. It’s not a donation of drawn-down U.S. Defense Department stockpiles, but rather cash that countries can use to purchase supplies that they might need.

The new money, along with the sale of $165 million in non-U.S. made ammunition compatible with Soviet-era weapons the Ukrainians use, brings the total amount of American military assistance to Ukraine to $3.7 billion since the invasion, officials said.

Zelenskyy had urged the Americans not to come empty-handed. U.S. officials said they believed the new assistance would satisfy at least some of the Ukrainians’ urgent pleas for more help. New artillery, including howitzers, continues to be delivered at a rapid pace to Ukraine’s military, which is being trained on its use in neighboring countries, the officials said.

Mr. Biden has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of genocide for the destruction and death wrought on Ukraine. On Thursday, Mr. Biden said he would provide a new package of $800 million in military aid to Ukraine that included heavy artillery and drones.

Congress approved $6.5 billion for military assistance last month as part of $13.6 billion in spending for Ukraine and allies in response to the Russian invasion.

From Poland, Blinken departed to return to Washington while Austin was heading to Ramstein, Germany, for a meeting on Tuesday of NATO defense ministers and other donor countries.

Zelenskyy’s meeting with U.S. officials took place as Ukrainians and Russians observed Orthodox Easter. Speaking from Kyiv’s ancient St. Sophia Cathedral, Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, highlighted its significance to a nation wracked by nearly two months of war.

“The great holiday today gives us great hope and unwavering faith that light will overcome darkness, good will overcome evil, life will overcome death, and therefore Ukraine will surely win!” he said.

But the war cast a shadow over the celebrations. In the northern village of Ivanivka, where Russian tanks still litter the roads, resident Olena Koptyl said “the Easter holiday doesn’t bring any joy. I’m crying a lot. We cannot forget how we lived.”

Putin attended the Orthodox Easter service in Moscow on Sunday.

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U.S. Wants to See Russia Weakened, Says Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin After Ukraine Visit

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U.S. Defense Secretary

Lloyd Austin

said Russia’s military capabilities should be degraded after he and Secretary of State

Antony Blinken

met with Ukraine’s President

Volodymyr Zelensky

and announced more U.S. military aid to the country.

“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Mr. Austin said Monday after the highest-level visit of U.S. officials to Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Mr. Blinken said: “Russia is failing, Ukraine is succeeding.”

In an attempt to stem the flow of heavy weapons from the U.S. and other allies to the front lines in Ukraine, Russia on Monday hit several Ukrainian railway hubs with missile strikes, severely disrupting rail traffic. Meanwhile, large fires broke out at fuel-storage facilities in the Russian region of Bryansk, some 60 miles from the border with Ukraine, as well as at a nearby military fuel depot, Russian state media said.

Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin said the U.S. wants Russia weakened, after meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv; a Russian oil depot caught fire; Ukrainian Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter as fighting continued. Photo: Associated Press

Russian authorities said they were investigating the fires at the facilities, which Russian state media said together contained around 15,000 tons of fuel. The blazes erupted less than a month after Russia said Ukrainian helicopters launched strikes that caused a fire at an oil depot in Russia’s Belgorod region, also bordering Ukraine. Russian state media aired security-camera footage on Monday that appeared to show a large explosion followed by a fire.

Bryansk, Belgorod and Kursk, another region of Russia bordering Ukraine, have extended a state of alert they rolled out earlier this month, citing “possible provocations” from Ukraine. Authorities in Kursk said Monday that Russian air-defense forces had shot down two Ukrainian drones in the village of Borovskoye. There were no casualties or damage, they said. Meanwhile, Russian state media reported that a series of explosions rocked the building of the Ministry of State Security of Transnistria, a breakaway region in Moldova, which also borders Ukraine. Ukraine hasn’t claimed responsibility for any of the attacks.

The Russian missile strikes hit rail infrastructure in the central Ukrainian region of Rivne, local officials said. They followed other missile attacks late Sunday in Poltava that struck an electricity plant and a fuel refinery. The governor of Ukraine’s central province of Vinnytsia said early Monday that Russian missile attacks had hit critical infrastructure in the region and that there were people dead and injured, though he provided no details.

The strikes came hours after Messrs. Blinken and Austin told Mr. Zelensky that Washington would reopen its embassy in Kyiv and provide Ukraine with $322 million in foreign military assistance to allow Kyiv to buy needed weapons. Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.,

Anatoly Antonov,

demanded in a diplomatic note that Washington stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, Russian news agency RIA reported Monday.

The scene of a missile strike on a train station on Monday in Krasne, in western Ukraine.



Photo:

MAKSYM KOZYTSKYY/via REUTERS

“We believe that they can win if they have the right equipment, the right support,” Mr. Austin said, adding of Mr. Zelensky: “While he’s grateful for all the things we’re doing, he’s also focused on what he thinks he’ll need next in order to be successful.” Besides artillery, Ukraine has expressed an interest in getting more tanks, he said.

Mr. Zelensky said the $3.4 billion in defense support provided by the U.S. so far has been the biggest contribution to Ukraine’s defense efforts, adding that he had also discussed sanctions on Russia, financial support for Ukraine and security guarantees with the secretaries.

“I would like to thank President Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position,” he said on his website.

The White House said Monday that Mr. Biden planned to nominate

Bridget Brink,

the current U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, as ambassador to Ukraine. The position has been vacant since the last Senate-confirmed ambassador to the country,

Marie Yovanovitch,

was ousted by then-President

Donald Trump

in 2019.

Artificial flowers adorned a memorial wall on Sunday in Lviv, in western Ukraine, for people killed during the war.



Photo:

yuriy dyachyshyn/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

An underground parking lot in Kharkiv, Ukraine, where people have been seeking shelter from the bombing of the city.



Photo:

sergey bobok/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Messrs. Austin and Blinken hailed Ukraine’s success in fending off Russia’s initial attack on Kyiv and maintaining its sovereignty. A senior State Department official briefed reporters on the flight out of Poland about many aspects of Ukraine’s military campaign that were discussed with Mr. Zelensky, including Russia’s depleted forces and inability to devote many more resources to the war without compromising its stance against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and even Finland, which could join the alliance.

Still, U.S. officials said they recognized that Russian President

Vladimir Putin

could choose to escalate the war, including possibly with weapons of mass destruction.

“I suspect that May is going to be very much in his mind in wanting to show something, so we fully anticipate that he’s going to press the accelerator the best he can,” the senior official said. “We’re trying to be prepared for everything.”

Having struck Odessa in recent days, the senior official said, Mr. Putin is “looking at the entire expanse of the Black Sea coastline.”

The official declined to comment on the explosions in Bryansk in the absence of sufficient information or analysis.

At a briefing in Poland after his return from Kyiv, Mr. Blinken said he spoke to United Nations Secretary-General

António Guterres

on Friday and that the U.N. chief, set to visit Moscow and Kyiv this week, would send a “clear, direct message” on behalf of most of the world that Russia should agree to a cease-fire, provide needed aid to civilians and stop the war.

Rescuers cleared debris on Monday from a damaged building in Odessa, on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.



Photo:

Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images

A child stood next to a wrecked vehicle in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on Sunday.



Photo:

ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO/REUTERS

Mr. Guterres had appealed for a four-day truce during the Orthodox Holy Week to allow for the evacuation of civilians from front-line towns and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The cease-fire proposal was rejected by Moscow, which said it was a ruse to allow Ukraine’s military to rest and regroup.

Senior U.S. military officers at a facility in Poland described an accelerating logistical network for supplying weapons and materiel to Ukraine, as well as a regional effort to increase troop levels and exercises with NATO members along the alliance’s eastern flank.

Seven 155-mm artillery pieces, along with their tow vehicles, are being processed through the facility, adding to the 18 howitzers the U.S. has already provided to Ukraine, a senior defense official said. Six dozen U.S. howitzers are being sent to Ukraine under a new aid package, and rounds of 155-mm artillery were visible on pallets at the Polish facility.

The focus on heavy artillery and armored vehicles comes as Russia removes some of its forces from around cities in northern Ukraine and focuses instead on the eastern Donbas region, in what is expected to be a high-stakes conflict on wide-open terrain.

Mr. Austin on Tuesday will join other defense ministers, including Ukraine’s

Oleksii Reznikov,

and NATO Secretary-General

Jens Stoltenberg

at a gathering at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. The topics to be discussed will include updating the representatives of more than 20 countries about the latest intelligence from the battlefield in Ukraine, security assistance to Kyiv and strengthening NATO’s defense-industrial base in the long term to support Ukraine’s defense, the defense official said.

One problem to be addressed at the gathering is Ukraine’s need for what NATO considers to be nonstandard ammunition and weapons systems, as well as discussions about whether the former Soviet republic could shift toward standard NATO equipment, the official said. For example, howitzers designed to fire 152-mm rounds can’t accommodate the 155-mm caliber.

The return of a U.S. diplomatic presence to Ukraine, which follows moves by the U.K., Italy, France and other countries, will help American and Ukrainian officials to coordinate aid and other efforts in person and to prepare for a future consular operation to address the needs of citizens of both countries, a State Department official said. The defense official declined to say whether U.S. Marines would help guard the embassy in Kyiv, saying the military would respond to the State Department’s needs.

Asked whether the increased U.S. focus on Ukraine risks increasing tensions with Russia, the State Department official said Washington has no plans to involve its troops in the conflict.

—Mauro Orru in Barcelona contributed to this article.

A resident of Hostomel, Ukraine, surveyed the remains of her home on Monday after fighting in the Kyiv-area suburb.



Photo:

John Moore/Getty Images

Write to William Mauldin at william.mauldin@wsj.com and Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com

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Ukraine leader pushes for more arms; US officials to visit

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s leader petitioned for more powerful Western weapons as he prepared to meet with top U.S. officials in the war-torn country’s capital Sunday and Russian forces concentrated their attacks on the east, including trying to dislodge the last Ukrainian troops holding out in the battered port city of Mariupol.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during a lengthy Saturday night news conference held in a Kyiv subway station. The White House has not commented.

Zelenskyy said he was looking for the Americans to produce results, both in terms of arms and security guarantees. “You can’t come to us empty-handed today, and we are expecting not just presents or some kind of cakes, we are expecting specific things and specific weapons,″ he said.

The visit would be the first by senior U.S. officials since Russia invaded Ukraine 60 days ago. Blinken stepped briefly onto Ukrainian soil in March to meet with the country’s foreign minister during a visit to Poland. Zelenskyy’s last face-to-face meeting with a U.S. leader was Feb. 19 in Munich with Vice President Kamala Harris.

The meeting was set to take place as Ukrainians and Russians observed Orthodox Easter, when the faithful celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, considered the most joyful holiday on the Christian calendar.

Speaking Sunday from the ancient St. Sophia Cathedral, Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, highlighted the allegorical significance of the occasion to a nation wracked by nearly two months of war.

“The great holiday today gives us great hope and unwavering faith that light will overcome darkness, good will overcome evil, life will overcome death, and therefore Ukraine will surely win!” he said.

Still, the war cast a shadow over celebrations. Residents of rural villages battered by the war approached the day with some cautious defiance.

“How do I feel? Very nervous. Everyone is nervous,” Olena Koptyl said as she prepared her Easter bread in the northern village of Ivanivka, where Russian tanks still littered the roads. “The Easter holiday doesn’t bring any joy. I’m crying a lot. We cannot forget how we lived.”

Earlier, during his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy claimed that intercepted communications recorded Russian troops discussing “how they conceal the traces of their crimes” in Mariupol. The president also highlighted the death of a 3-month old girl in a Russian missile strike Saturday on the Black Sea port of Odesa.

Zelenskyy said the military equipment received from Western supporters had been a big help so far, but he also has stressed that Ukraine needs more heavy weapons, including long-range air defense systems, as well as warplanes to fend off the Russian attacks.

The Russian military reported that it hit 423 Ukrainian targets overnight, including fortified positions and troops concentrations, while Russian warplanes destroyed 26 Ukrainian military sites, including an explosives factory and several artillery depots.

Most of the fighting Sunday focused on the eastern Donbas region, where Ukrainian forces are concentrated and where Moscow-backed separatists controlled some territory before the war. Since failing to capture Kyiv, the Russians are aiming to gain full control over Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.

Russian forces launched fresh airstrikes on a Mariupol steel plant where an estimated 1,000 civilians are sheltering along with about 2,000 Ukrainian fighters. The Azovstal steel mill where the defenders are holed up is the last corner of resistance in the city, which the Russians have otherwise occupied.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, called for a localized Easter truce. He urged Russia to allow civilians to leave the plant and suggested talks to negotiate an exit for the Ukrainian soldiers.

Podolyak tweeted that the Russian military was attacking the plant with heavy bombs and artillery while accumulating forces and equipment for a direct assault.

Mariupol has been the focus of fierce fighting since the start of the war due to its location on the Sea of Azov. Its capture would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, free up Russian troops to fight elsewhere, and allow Moscow to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.

More than 100,000 people — down from a prewar population of about 430,000 — are believed to remain in Mariupol with scant food, water or heat. Ukrainian authorities estimate that over 20,000 civilians have been killed.

Satellite images released this week showed what appeared to be mass graves dug in towns to the west and east of Mariupol.

Zelenskyy accused the Russians of committing war crimes by killing civilians, as well as of setting up “filtration camps” near Mariupol for people caught trying to leave the city. From there, he said, Ukrainians are sent to areas under Russian occupation or to Russia itself, often as far as Siberia or the Far East. Many of them, he said, are children.

The claims could not be independently verified.

In attacks on the eve of Orthodox Easter, Russian forces pounded cities and towns in southern and eastern Ukraine. The 3-month-old baby was among eight people killed when Russia fired cruise missiles at Odesa, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, citing social media posts, reported that the infant’s mother, Valeria Glodan, and grandmother also died when a missile hit a residential area. Zelenskyy promised to find and punish those responsible for the strike.

“The war started when this baby was one month old,″ he said. Can you imagine what is happening? “They are filthy scum, there are no other words for it.””

For the Donbas offensive, Russia has reassembled troops who fought around Kyiv and in northern Ukraine earlier. The British Ministry of Defense said Sunday that Ukrainian forces had repelled numerous assaults in the past week and “inflicted significant cost on Russian forces.”

“Poor Russian morale and limited time to reconstitute, re-equip and reorganize forces from prior offensives are likely hindering Russian combat effectiveness,” the ministry said in an intelligence update.

The spiritual leaders of the world’s Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics appealed for relief for the suffering population of Ukraine.

From Istanbul, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I said a “human tragedy” was unfolding. , Bartholomew, considered the first among his Eastern Orthodox patriarch equals, citing in particular “the thousands of people surrounded in Mariupol, civilians, among them the wounded, the elderly, women and many children.”

Pope Francis, speaking from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, renewed his call for an Easter truce, calling it “a minimal and tangible sign of a desire for peace.”

“The attacks must be stopped, to respond to the suffering of the exhausted population,” Francis said without naming the aggressor.

___

Associated Press journalists Yesica Fisch in Sloviansk, Ukraine, Mstyslav Chernov and Felipe Dana in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Cara Anna and Inna Varenytsia in Kviv and Associated Press staff members around the world contributed to this story.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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Live updates | Zelenskyy: Kyiv meeting set with US officials

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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s president says he will meet Sunday in Kyiv with the U.S. secretary of state and secretary of defense.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke of the plans Saturday during a press conference. He did not immediately share more detail about the visit from Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin.

The White House declined to comment on Saturday. The U.S. State Department also declined comment.

Zelenskyy has for weeks urged Western allies to send Ukraine more weapons to counter the Russian invasion.

___

KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:

— Ukrainian counterattacks slowing Russian offensive in the east

— Ukrainian village faces a churchless Easter

— Sanctions hit Russian economy, though Putin says otherwise

— Refugees in the Czech Republic make protective vests for volunteer fighters

— Possible mass graves near Mariupol shown in satellite images

— UN rights chief sees ‘horror story’ of violations in Ukraine

— Follow all AP stories on Russia’s war on Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

___

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

BERLIN — Germany’s former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has rejected criticism of his work as a lobbyist for Russian energy companies since leaving office in 2005, telling the New York Times: “I don’t do mea culpa.”

In an interview with the newspaper published Saturday, Schroeder also claims that his long-time friend President Vladimir Putin of Russia is interested in ending the war with Ukraine.

Schroeder reportedly blasted German officials who now criticize his efforts to procure Russian energy supplies for Germany, saying that “they all went along with it for the last 30 years.”

In the interview, he called the war in Ukraine “a mistake” and said atrocities need to be investigated, but added that he did not believe Putin himself ordered killings of civilians such as those allegedly committed by Russian troops in Bucha.

Schroeder, who met with Putin in Moscow last month on a private mission to broker peace with Ukraine, claimed the Russian president “is interested in ending the war.”

“But that’s not so easy. There are a few points that need to be clarified,” the New York Times quoted him saying, without elaborating.

___

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office said he promised more defense weaponry is on the way to Ukraine while speaking with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by phone on Saturday afternoon, the latest chat between the two leaders who talk to each other regularly.

The British leader told Zelenskyy that the United Kingdom is sending more weaponry including vehicles, drones and anti-tank missiles.

Johnson also confirmed to Zelenskyy that the U.K. would reopen its embassy in Kyiv next week. He also updated the Ukrainian leader on new U.K. sanctions designations against members of the Russian military and told him the British government was helping to collect evidence of war crimes.

The two also discussed the U.K.’s work on long term security solutions and financial support with international partners.

“The Prime Minister ended by reiterating the UK’s unwavering support for the people of Ukraine and committed to continue working with international partners to provide the assistance necessary to help Ukraine defend itself,” Downing Street said in a statement.

___

KYIV, Ukraine — An adviser to Ukraine’s president says five people including a three-month-old infant were killed in a missile attack in the Black Sea port city of Odesa.

Ukraine presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, provided the information Saturday.

An adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister earlier said Russian forces fired at least six cruise missiles at the city.

Anton Gerashchenko said in a Telegram post on Saturday that Ukrainian forces were able to shoot down several missiles, but at least one landed and exploded.

“Residents of the city heard explosions in different areas,” Gerashchenko wrote. “Residential buildings were hit.”

___

HELSINKI — Hundreds of protesters belonging to Latvia’s sizable Russian-speaking community have taken part in a large-scale demonstration in the Baltic nation’s capital, Riga, condemning the Kremlin regime and Moscow’s aggression on Ukraine.

Participants of Saturday’s rally entitled “The Russian Voice Against War” waved Ukrainian flags and posters with inscriptions such as “Stop the genocide in Ukraine” and “Complete Russian gas and oil embargo” at the central Freedom Monument, Latvia’s public broadcaster LSM reported.

Organizers said the protest aimed to demonstrate that many of Latvia’s Russian-speakers are not aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a statement, they called Moscow’s actions “criminal.”

Ethnic Russians make up around 25% of the 1.9 million population in Latvia, a former Soviet republic. Adding other national groups, like Belarusians and Ukrainians, the share of Russian-speakers is about 30% of the all citizens.

Earlier this week, Latvia’s Parliament unanimously declared killings of civilians in areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces, including Bucha, Irpin and Mariupol, to be acts of genocide.

___

KYIV, Ukraine — A top Ukrainian official has announced a country-wide curfew for the night of the Orthodox Easter.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said in a video address Saturday that in the regions most affected by the invasion — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Kherson — the curfew will run from 7 p.m. Saturday until 5 a.m. Sunday.

In others regions, including Kyiv, Odesa, Chernihiv and Lviv, the curfew will run from 11 p.m. Saturday until 5 a.m. Sunday.

___

KYIV, Ukraine — An adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office says Russian forces are attacking a steel plant that is the last defense stronghold of Ukrainian forces in the strategic port city of Mariupol.

Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said during a briefing on Saturday that the Russian forces have resumed air strikes on Azovstal and were trying to storm it.

“The enemy is trying to completely suppress resistance of the defenders of Mariupol in the area of Azovstal,” Arestovich said.

Arestovich’s statement came two days after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin that the whole of Mariupol, with the exception of Azovstal, had been “liberated” by the Russians.

Putin ordered the Russian military to not to storm the plant and instead to block it off in an apparent attempt to stifle the remaining pocket of resistance there.

Ukrainian officials have estimated that about 2,000 of their troops are inside the plant along with about 1,000 sheltering in the facility’s underground tunnels.

Arestovich says the Ukrainian fighters are still holding on despite the resumed attacks and are even trying to counter them.

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LVIV, Ukraine — Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy has announced a curfew starting on Orthodox Easter night.

Citing “new intelligence,” Kozytskyy said the curfew would run from 11 p.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Sunday, and then every day between those hours until further notice.

“Unfortunately, the enemy doesn’t have such a concept as a major religious holiday,” Kozytskyy wrote. “They are so beastly that they don’t understand what Easter is.”

Kozytskyy said the church leadership is in support of the decision and that all churches in the region will be postponing their Easter night services until the morning hours.

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KYIV, Ukraine — A video released by the Azov regiment of Ukraine’s National Guard, part of a group currently holed up in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, shows women and children sheltering underground. Some of them have been hiding in the plant’s tunnels for up to two months.

“We want to see peaceful skies, we want to breathe in fresh air,” said one woman in the video that was released on Saturday. “You have simply no idea what it means for us to simply eat, drink some sweetened tea. For us it is already happiness.”

Another young girl in the video says she and her relatives left home on Feb. 27. Since then, they have seen “neither the sky, nor the sun.” “We really want to get out of here safely, so that no one gets hurt,” the girl pleads.

Azov’s deputy commander Sviatoslav Palamar told the AP the video was shot on Thursday. Contents of the video could not be independently verified.

According to Ukrainian officials, some 1,000 civilians, including women and children, remain trapped at Azovstal together with the Ukrainian troops holed up there.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov says two people were killed and 19 more wounded by Russian shelling.

Synehubov said on the messaging app Telegram on Saturday that over the past day Russian forces fired at the region’s civilian infrastructure 56 times.

Kharkiv, which is near the front lines, has faced repeated shelling from Russian forces.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Efforts to evacuate civilians to safer areas will continue in Ukraine on Saturday, the country’s officials said.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on the Telegram messaging app there will be another attempt to evacuate women, children and the elderly from the strategic port city of Mariupol, which has been besieged by Russian forces for weeks and reduced largely to smoking rubble by constant bombardment.

The Kremlin earlier this week declared that Mariupol has been “liberated,” with the exception of the Azovstal steel mill, the last pocket of resistance where Ukrainian troops are holed up.

Vereshchuk said that “if everything goes according to plan,” the evacuation in Mariupol will begin at midday on Saturday. Many previous attempts to evacuate civilians from the city have failed.

The governor of the eastern Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said on Telegram that an evacuation train will depart Saturday from the eastern city of Pokrovsk. Residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which comprise Ukraine’s industrial heartland known as Donbas, will be able to take the train free of charge.

It will bring them to the Western city of Chop near Ukraine’s border with Slovakia and Hungary, according to Haidai.

Russia has said that establishing full control over the Donbas, a large part of which has been in the hands of Russia-backed separatists since 2014, is currently one of the main goals of its operation in Ukraine.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai says that two people were killed by Russian shelling in the city of Popasna.

Haidai said Saturday on the messaging app Telegram that residential buildings in the region were shelled 12 times the previous day, and Popasna “got the most” of it.

“In addition to the fact that street fighting continues in the city for several weeks, the Russian army constantly fires at multistory residential buildings and private houses. Just yesterday, local residents withstood five enemy artillery attacks…. Not all survived,” Haidai wrote.

He added that some houses were also destroyed in Lysychansk and Novodruzhesk.

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KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukraine military’s General Staff says that Russian forces continue their “offensive operations” in eastern Ukraine with the goal of defeating Ukrainian forces, establishing full control over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and securing “a land route between these territories and the occupied Crimea.”

Ukrainian forces in the past 24 hours repelled eight Russian attacks in the two regions, destroying nine tanks, 18 armored units and 13 vehicles, a tanker and three artillery systems, the General Staff said on its Facebook page on Saturday morning.

Russian forces continue to partially block and shell Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, and are active in the area of Izyum, the update said.

In the strategic port city of Mariupol, Russian troops “continue to blockade” Ukrainian units in the area of the Azovstal steelworks, the last remaining stronghold, and “launch air strikes on the city, including with the use of long-range aircraft,” the post said, adding that an engineering unit arrived to Mariupol in order to demine the port infrastructure.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Another mass grave has been found outside Mariupol, the city council and an adviser to the mayor said Friday.

The city council posted a satellite photo provided by Planet Labs showing what it said was a mass grave 45 meters (147.64 feet) by 25 meters (82.02 feet) that could hold the bodies of at least 1,000 Mariupol residents.

It said the new reported mass grave is outside the village of Vynohradne, which is east of Mariupol.

Earlier this week, satellite photos from Maxar Technologies revealed what appeared to be rows upon rows of more than 200 freshly dug mass graves in the town of Manhush, located to the west of Mariupol.

The discovery of mass graves has led to accusations that the Russians are trying to conceal the slaughter of civilians in the city.

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KYIV, Ukraine — At least three civilians died and seven more were injured in shelling attacks in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine on Friday, as Russian forces continue to roll into the country’s industrial east, the governor of the region said in a Telegram post.

Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko blamed the deaths of “three more peaceful residents” in a small town and two villages on Russian shelling.

In a separate Telegram post earlier, Kyrylenko said that as of Friday afternoon, Russians had opened fire at 20 settlements in the region and destroyed or damaged 34 civilian infrastructure facilities.

Also on Friday, the local prosecutor’s office in the northeastern region of Kharkiv said in a Telegram post that charred bodies of two residents were discovered near the city of Izyum that same day. The post accused Russian soldiers of torturing the residents and burning their bodies.

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WASHINGTON — The Pentagon says U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will convene a meeting next week in Germany of defense officials and military leaders from more than 20 countries to discuss Ukraine’s immediate and long-term defense needs.

The Pentagon press secretary, John Kirby, said Friday that about 40 nations, including NATO members, were invited and that responses are still arriving for the session to be held Tuesday at Ramstein air base. He did not identify the nations that have agreed to attend but said more details will be provided in coming days.

The meeting comes as Russia gears up for what is expected to be a major offensive in eastern Ukraine.

The agenda will include an updated assessment of the Ukraine battlefield as well as discussion of efforts to continue a steady flow of weapons and other military aid, Kirby said. It will include consultations on Ukraine’s post-war defense needs but is not expected to consider changes in the U.S. military posture in Europe, he said.

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The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that one serviceman died, 27 more went missing and 396 were rescued after a fire on the flagship missile cruiser Moskva last week.

The statement comes a week after the vessel sunk.

Shortly after the incident, the ministry said the entire crew of the ship, which was presumed by the media to be about 500 people, had been rescued. The ministry did not offer an explanation for the contradicting reports.

Ukraine said it hit the cruiser with a missile strike.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s security chief said Friday that the main battles in the country are taking place in the Donbas, the industrial heartland in the east, with Russia deploying more and more troops every day.

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told The Associated Press that over 100,000 Russian troops are currently fighting in Ukraine, including mercenaries from Syria and Libya.

Some of Russia’s elite military units have left the strategic Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, which was declared “liberated” by the Kremlin on Thursday, and are now moving to the east of the country to participate in the fighting there, Danilov said.

Danilov said a nighttime helicopter delivery brought weapons to Mariupol’s steel mill, the last stronghold of Ukrainian forces in the city. He urged Ukraine’s Western partners to speed up the delivery of weapons to his country.

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World

Biden Administration to Provide Ukraine More Intelligence, Heavier Weapons to Fight Russia

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The Biden administration is moving to significantly expand the intelligence it is providing to Ukraine’s forces so they can target Moscow’s military units in Russian-occupied Donbas and Crimea, part of a shift in U.S. support that also includes a new security assistance package with heavier weaponry.

The new intelligence guidance comes as the White House announced that it will send $800 million in additional weapons to Kyiv, including artillery, armored personnel carriers and helicopters, to help Ukrainian forces hold off a major Russian offensive in the eastern part of the country that is expected to unfold in coming days.

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