Vladimir Putin RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR

Putin orders forces not to storm last stronghold in Mariupol as west warns of Russian cyber-attacks.

Oleg Synegubov, the head of the regional state administration, said Russian forces shelled areas of Kharkiv with multiple systems. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, said his government supports talks to resolve international disputes but reiterated China’s opposition to unilateral sanctions. The mayor of Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, has said it is under intense bombardment.

Vladimir Putin said it was “impractical” to attack the Mariupol factory where Ukrainian forces were holding out, seeking to claim a victory and avoid more ...

The only bridge to Chernihiv had been destroyed by bombing, so they drove the vans to the banks of the Dnipro River, transferred the cargo to a boat and unloaded it on the other side. “Flights continue to arrive into the region from the presidential drawdown authorities that we are executing,” the official said. It is hardly surprising that Mr. Putin has not backed down in the face of economic sanctions and measures to cut off his country from technology needed for new weapons and now some consumer goods. While Russian casualties have been high and Mr. Putin’s ambitions have narrowed in Ukraine, American intelligence assessments have concluded that the Russian president believes that the West’s efforts to punish him and contain Russia’s power will crack over time. He said that his younger brother, who trained as an auto mechanic in a vocational school, had been reluctant to go into the military and had not supported the war. President Emmanuel Macron of France and the far-right leader Marine Le Pen had a heated exchange over Ukraine during a televised presidential debate, after Le Pen expressed her solidarity with the Ukrainian people in an apparent attempt to distance herself from Putin. “You are, in fact, in Russia’s grip,” Macron shot back. It released a video on Saturday that purported to show Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov, the commander of the Russian Navy, meeting with men described as the crew of the Moskva lined up in formation and wearing uniforms. On the second call, he said that there had been no rescue involved, but that Leonid had been caught at the site of an explosion. Mr. Putin has blocked access to Facebook and many foreign news outlets, and enacted a law to imprison anyone spreading “false information” about the war. Modifying Theodore Roosevelt’s famous line, he said the U.S. would “speak softly and carry a large Javelin,” a reference to the anti-tank weapon that has been effective against Russian armor. Mr. Putin, in the tightly choreographed meeting, responded by calling the storming of the plant “impractical.” It also allowed Mr. Putin to present himself as a leader mindful of the lives of his own forces at a time when some Russian families are clamoring for information about apparently missing servicemen and women.