In a video overnight, Zelensky described it as “the achievement of millions of Ukrainians, all of whom made the most important decision of their lives on February 24 – the struggle”. Zelensky gave an extensive and almost poetic list of the many ways in which the Ukrainians helped repel Russian troops, including “those who showed that Russian warships could be evacuated, even if they were at the bottom.” It was his only reference to the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, which sank while being towed in port. Zelensky said he remembered the first day of the invasion, when many world leaders, unsure if Ukraine could survive, advised him to leave the country. “But they did not know how brave the Ukrainians are, how much we value freedom and the ability to live as we wish,” Zelensky said.

KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: – Russian Army’s damaged Black Sea flagship sinks – Pressure on the US to give Ukraine more information about Russia – UN says war in Ukraine threatens to destroy many poor nations – The detention of a Ukrainian oligarch close to Putin angers Moscow – The Presidents of Poland and the Baltics visit Ukraine in support – Go to for more coverage

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: OTTAWA, Ontario – Canada is sending troops to Poland to help care for, coordinate and resettle Ukrainian refugees in Poland, including some who will be coming to Canada. Defense Minister Anita Anand announced the deployment of up to 150 troops on Thursday. More than 2.6 million Ukrainians have fled to Poland since the first Russian troops crossed into Ukraine on February 24, and more than 2 million more have fled to other surrounding countries. Anand said most of the troops deployed would be deployed to reception centers across Poland to help care for and register Ukrainian refugees. Another team is being sent to help coordinate international aid efforts. Canada has deployed hundreds of additional troops in Eastern Europe since the Russian invasion, as NATO’s military alliance seeks to support Ukraine and prevent the conflict from escalating into a wider war.

KIEV, Ukraine – The head of the UN World Food Program has said people are “starving” in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol and predicted the country’s humanitarian crisis could worsen as Russia intensifies its offensive in the coming weeks. WFP chief executive David Beasley also warned in an interview with the Associated Press in Kyiv on Thursday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which exports grain, could destabilize nations off its coast and could cause waves of displacement. life elsewhere. The war that began on February 24 “devastated the people of Ukraine,” Beasley said, lamenting the lack of access to the WFP and other aid organizations trying to reach those in need in the midst of the conflict. The fluid nature of the conflict, which has pushed the fighting away from areas around the capital and into eastern Ukraine, has made it particularly difficult for hungry Ukrainians to reach out. The WFP is now trying to put food supplies in areas that could be involved in the fighting, but Beasley acknowledged that there is “a lot of complexity” as the situation develops rapidly. – UNITED NATIONS – The US ambassador to the United Nations has accused Russia of exacerbating the precarious food situation in Yemen and elsewhere by invading Ukraine, calling it “another bleak example of the wave of its unprovoked, unjust, irrational in the world most vulnerable “. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a UN Security Council meeting on war-torn Yemen on Thursday that the World Food Program recognized the poorest nation in the Arab world as one of the countries hardest hit by rising wheat prices and from Ukraine. Russia’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyansky responded: “The main factor for the instability and the source of the problem today is not the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, but the sanctions imposed on our country, which seeks to stop any supply. from Russia and the supply chain, in addition to those supplies that these countries need in the West, in other words energy “. The sharp exchange came a day after a UN task force warned that war threatened to devastate the economies of many developing countries, which now face even higher food and energy costs and increasingly difficult economic conditions. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement: “As many as 1.7 billion people – a third of whom are already living in poverty – are now at risk for food, energy and economic cause increases in poverty and hunger. “

NEW YORK – A Russian lawmaker and two aides have been charged with conspiracy to commit US sanctions as they launched a covert Russian propaganda campaign in the United States to gain support for moves against Ukraine and other countries, according to an indictment that was not sealed on Thursday. Three charges of conspiracy have been filed in Manhattan Federal Court against lawmaker Aleksandr Babakov, 59, and two of his staff members – Aleksandr Nikolayevich Vorobev, 52, and Mikhail Alekseyevich Plisyuk, 58. All three men named are based in Russia and remain at large, authorities said. Babakov is currently serving as deputy speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s legislature, federal officials said in a statement. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Babakov’s actions show that “Russia’s illegal actions against Ukraine extend beyond the battlefield, as Russian-controlled political influences allegedly plan to direct geopolitical change in favor of of Russia secretly and illegally in the US and elsewhere in the West. “

Russian authorities have accused Ukrainian forces of launching airstrikes in the Russian region of Bryansk bordering Ukraine, the latest in a series of allegations of cross-border attacks by Kyiv on Russian soil. Russia’s Investigative Committee says two Ukrainian military helicopters entered Russian airspace on Thursday and “deliberately flew at least six airstrikes on residential buildings in the village of Klimovo,” about 11 kilometers (30 miles) from the Russian border. border. He said at least six houses in the village were damaged and seven people, including a small child, were injured. The Commission of Inquiry has launched an investigation into the attack. Earlier on Thursday, Russia’s state security service, the FSB, also accused Ukrainian forces of firing on a border crossing in the Bryansk region on Wednesday. The reports could not be independently verified. Earlier this month, Ukraine’s top security officials denied that Kyiv was behind an airstrike on an oil depot in the Russian city of Belgorod, 35 miles from the border.

PARIS – France is moving its embassy in Ukraine back to Kyiv from the western city of Lviv, following the withdrawal of Russian troops from areas around the capital and focusing on war-torn eastern Ukraine. The French Foreign Ministry announced the move on Thursday, after Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Couleba about French military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. No relocation date announced. France had retained its embassy in Kyiv at the start of the war, but moved its operations to Lviv in March. France sent a new convoy of fire trucks, ambulances and emergency equipment to Ukraine on Thursday, and a team of French investigators arrived this week to gather evidence of war crimes.

Russian news reports say a criminal case has been opened against a Siberian journalist whose news website had published content critical of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Mikhail Afanasyev, the editor-in-chief of Novy Fokus in Russia’s Khakassia region, was arrested by security forces on Wednesday for reporting on the site of 11 riot police officers who allegedly refused to deploy to Ukraine as part of Russian military action there. Afanasyev was accused on Thursday of spreading “deliberately false information” about the Russian armed forces, an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison under a law passed in early March. Another Siberian-based journalist was also arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of violating Russia’s new media coverage of the situation in Ukraine. Sergei Mikhailov, the founder of the Altai-based weekly LIStok, has reportedly been remanded in custody over the newspaper’s alleged “calls for sanctions against Russia”.

LONDON – The British Foreign Office says it is freezing assets worth up to 10 10 billion ($ 13.1 billion) belonging to two Russian oligarchs described as longtime business associates of Russian billionaire Officials said Thursday that Eugene Tenenbaum had taken control of Evrington Investments Ltd., an investment company linked to Abramovich, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Tenenbaum, who is also the director of the Chelsea Football Club, was hit by a freeze on assets. The other Russian to be sanctioned is David Davidovich, who is subject to asset freezing and travel bans. The move comes after the Channel Islands of Jersey said this week it was seizing some $ 7 billion in assets suspected of links to Abramovich, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The British government said the measures “cut off key sources of revenue for Putin’s war machine” amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

PARIS – French President Emmanuel …