Russian President Vladimir Putin has no exit strategy for the Ukraine war – and that is a problem for the West, President Joe Biden says.
Biden, speaking Monday at a political fundraiser outside Washington, said Putin had mistakenly believed the invasion of Ukraine would break up NATO and weaken the European Union, according to a Reuters report.
Less than a decade ago, Russia stormed into Crimea with little international resistance. But much of the western world rallied behind Ukraine when Moscow sent troops into the heart of the country, rolling to within miles of the capital Kyiv. Russian troops have reportedly taken heavy losses while gaining limited ground across Ukraine.
Biden said Putin is a very calculating man who “doesn’t have a way out right now, and I’m trying to figure out what we do about that.”
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Latest developments:
►One person was killed and five were wounded when Russian forces fired seven missiles from the air at Odesa on Monday night, hitting a shopping center and a warehouse, the Ukrainian military said.
►The United States is suspending 25% import taxes on Ukraine’s steel in a show of support for the country’s beleaguered economy during the Russian invasion.
1,000 Ukrainian troops, 100 civilians hanging on as Russia blasts Mariupol
Many badly wounded fighters are among the 1,000 Ukrainian troops still holed up at the sprawling Azovstal steel plant, the last major holdout in the port city of Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Tuesday. About 100 civilians also remain trapped in the maze of bunkers and tunnels, she said.
“Hundreds are injured,” Vereshchuk told AFP. “There are people with serious injuries who require urgent evacuation. The situation is deteriorating every day.”
Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, said Russian bombardments have targeted the complex dozens of times in the last day or so.
“It is easier to say when the shelling does not happen than when it happens,” he said. “Aviation and artillery are almost constantly at work there.”
Russian troops have overwhelmed most of the embattled city, home to 450,000 people before the war. Local officials say fewer than 100,000 remain, but Russia has struggled to complete a takeover that would deprive Ukraine of an important port while providing Russia with a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula and a staging area to send troops elsewhere in the country.