Biden heading to Poland as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nears first anniversary

The words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hours after Vladimir Putin launched his invasion on February 24, 2022.

They were prophetic. Many analysts expected Ukrainian resistance to crumble in days. But for a year, the Ukrainian military has faced down a much larger force, rolling back the Russians’ initial gains in Kharkiv and Kherson, holding the line in the hotly contested Donbas region.

In the process the Ukrainians have inflicted stunning losses on the Russian army, and laid bare the outmoded tactics, stale leadership and brittle morale of a force more impressive on parade than on the battlefield.

By contrast, Ukrainian units have proved nimble and adaptive, harnessing drone technology, decentralized command and smart operational planning to exploit their enemy’s systemic weaknesses.

And few would have bet that one year into this war, the vintage Ukrainian air force would still be flying.

Read the full analysis here.

US President Joe Biden is heading to Poland for a two-day visit to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, returning to the region as the war enters a volatile new phase without a clear path to peace.

Biden will arrive in Warsaw on Tuesday where he will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, the White House said in a statement Sunday.

One year ago, Biden was urgently warning a sometimes-skeptical world that a massive buildup of Russian troops along Ukraine’s borders was the precursor to war. At the time, even some inside his own government questioned the ability of the Ukrainians to withstand an invasion, predicting the imminent fall of the capital Kyiv.

Instead, Ukrainian fighters have held the capital and continue to resist Russian attempts to control territory, helped by a massive influx of Western weapons, ammunition and equipment. The war has become a grinding conflict that US officials say could last for months or even years.

It has come to shape Biden’s foreign policy, the fallout reverberating in the global economy and leading to newfound unity between the United States and its European allies.

Biden’s aides have been planning for several weeks how they will mark the anniversary of the invasion, including potentially a major address. They hope to emphasize the resilience of the Ukrainian people while stressing the importance of unity in the uncertain months ahead.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is currently preparing for an expected Russian offensive in the spring, appealing to Western governments for additional assistance and weaponry to help sustain the fight.

A year into Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the US has seen enough.

The declaration marks the strongest accusation yet from the US as it seeks to punish Moscow for its war of aggression.

The US government declared last March that members of the Russian armed forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine. President Joe Biden has gone as far as saying that atrocities at the hands of Moscow’s troops qualify as “genocide.”

While the “crimes against humanity” determination is significant, it remains largely symbolic for now. It does not immediately trigger any specific consequences, nor does it give the US the ability to prosecute Russians involved with perpetrating crimes.

However, it could provide international bodies, such as the International Criminal Court, with evidence to effectively try to prosecute those crimes.

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Two people were injured following Russian shelling of civilian infrastructure in numerous areas of the Dnipropetrovsk region on Sunday, Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipropetrovsk region council said on Telegram. 

The regional head reported Russians also shelled Nikopol, Marhanets, Myrove and Velykomykhailivka communities with “heavy” artillery. 

Several residential buildings, gas pipelines and power grids were damaged in Myrove, he said.

Ukraine is “inflicting extremely tangible losses” on Russian troops in the strategic eastern town of Vuhledar, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Sunday.

The situation in the area is “very difficult,” he added. 

Zelensky also noted that the situation around the southern region of Odesa is unchanged and “we are controlling all potential prospects.” 

The situation in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv meanwhile is “completely under control, as well as along the entire northern border,” he said. 

New sanctions: Zelensky said he had made “a new sanctions step against all those who fuel Russian aggression.” 

Zelensky implemented a NSDC decision to impose sanctions on an additional 333 Russian citizens and the Moscow Stock Exchange, a public joint-stock company. 

“The next EU sanctions package — the tenth one already — is now being prepared,” he said. “We are working with our partners to strengthen it.”

The US ambassador to the United Nations said Sunday that China would cross a “red line” if the country decided to provide lethal military aid to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

“We welcome the Chinese announcement that they want peace because that’s what we always want to pursue in situations like this. But we also have to be clear that if there are any thoughts and efforts by the Chinese and others to provide lethal support to the Russians in their brutal attack against Ukraine, that that is unacceptable,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “State of the Union.”

As CNN previously reported, the US has begun seeing “disturbing” trendlines in China’s support for Russia’s military, and there are signs that Beijing wants to “creep up to the line” of providing lethal military aid to Russia without getting caught, US officials familiar with the intelligence told CNN.

The officials would not describe in detail what intelligence the US has seen suggesting a recent shift in China’s posture but said US officials have been concerned enough that they have shared the intelligence with allies and partners at the Munich Security Conference over the past several days.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the issue when he met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Saturday on the sidelines of the conference, officials said.

“The secretary was quite blunt in warning about the implications and consequences of China providing material support to Russia or assisting Russia with systematic sanctions evasion,” a senior State Department official told reporters.

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Three civilians were killed and five others, including three children, were wounded by Russian shelling Sunday in southern Ukraine, local officials said.

The shelling hit the village of Burhunka in the Kherson region, the region’s military administration said in a Telegram post.

The three people killed were a mother, father and uncle from a family whose house was struck by the shelling, it said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday he has concerns over China’s support of Russia’s military, specifically that Beijing is considering supplying Moscow with “lethal support.”

“We’ve been watching this very closely,” Blinken told “Face the Nation” on CBS while in Munich.

CNN previously reported that the US has begun seeing “disturbing” trendlines of late in China’s support for Russia’s military, and there are signs that Beijing wants to “creep up to the line” of providing lethal military aid to Russia without getting caught, according to US officials familiar with the intelligence.

The officials would not describe in detail what intelligence the US has seen suggesting a recent shift in China’s posture but said US officials have been concerned enough that they shared the intelligence with allies and partners at the Munich Security Conference in Germany over the past several days.

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Two leading House Republicans have called on President Joe Biden to increase military support to Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion and reiterated support on both sides of the aisle for continuing to fund the Ukrainian war effort.

Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “State of the Union” in a joint interview with House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner that aired Sunday that bipartisan support for Ukraine is “still very strong.”

But as the one-year anniversary of the war approaches, McCaul warned that hedging support for Ukraine could prolong the conflict, which could play into Russia’s advantages and allow anti-Ukraine dissent to build.

The US and its allies have already sent nearly $50 billion in aid and equipment to Ukraine’s military over the past year. To keep that up, and to rebuild its own stockpiles, the Pentagon is racing to re-arm, embarking on the biggest increase in ammunition production in decades and putting portions of the US defense industry on a war-footing despite America technically not being at war.

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