Destroyed Russian armored vehicles in Bucha, west of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, March 4, 2022 (Aris Messinis/AFP)

EA on BBC: Putin Hesitates Over His Invasion of Ukraine

EA on Times Radio and International TV: How Putin Revived NATO

Ukraine War: Poland Reminds EU of Its Vulnerable Borders

Friday’s Coverage: Almost 60% of Ukrainian Children Are Displaced

UPDATE 1700 GMT:

Officials in Lviv say five people have been injured by Russian attacks.

The officials said there were two rocket assaults, having earlier suspected three missile strikes.

UPDATE 1522 GMT:

Lviv in western Ukraine has been hit by three Russian missile strikes, including one landing close to the city’s communications tower and possibly one on or near an oil refinery.

A spokesman for the regional military administration said, “There were three powerful explosions near Lviv on the side of Kryvchytsy, now there is an air alarm, so keep calm and be in shelter.”

The attack comes as US President Joe Biden is meeting Ukrainian and Polish ministers in neighboring Poland.

Biden offered Ukraine more military aid and pledged “further defence cooperation” in a discussion with Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

UPDATE 1348 GMT:

Russian shelling has damaged the Holocaust Memorial in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city.

Soon after the start of the invasion, Russia attacked the TV tower near the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial in Kyiv.

UPDATE 1343 GMT:

The spokeswoman for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reports more German military aid to Kyiv:

UPDATE 1320 GMT:

An American teacher has been released after 10 days in Russian detention.

Tyler Jacob, 28, was fleeing Kherson in southern Ukraine. He was aboard a bus travelling to Turkey when he was seized by Russian soldiers at a checkpoint in Crimea.

Women’s basketball star Brittney Griner is still in detention in Russia. She was arrested just after the start of the invasion, with Russian officials claiming they found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage at a Moscow airport.

UPDATE 1310 GMT:

The Kremlin-linked mercenaries of the Wagner Group are increasing their presence in Ukraine, according to a US official.

The official said the number of mercenaries is expected to rise from about 300 to at least 1,000. They will be deployed in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, bolstering Russian proxy forces.

Wagner leaders are expected to join the deployment in Donetsk and Luhansk.

The US official added that Wagner is relocating artillery, air defenses, and radar from Libya as well as personnel from Libya and Syria. The mercenaries and equipment are being moved by cargo aircraft of the Russian military.

UPDATE 1300 GMT:

Russian forces are in the city of Slavutych, near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine.

A local official said the troops seized the hospital and briefly detained the mayor.

Slavutych was built for evacuees from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and is the home of workers of the plant, occupied by Russian forces last month.

The International Atomic Energy Agency warned on Friday that fighting in the area, as well as Russia’s refusal to allow timely rotation of workers, could jeopardize the safety of the defunct plant.

Russian forces have been met with protests and resistance from Slavutych’s residents, said Oleksandr Pavliuk, the head of the Kyiv regional military administration.

Videos showed a crowd stretching out a Ukrainian flag in a main square outside City Hall and chanting, “Glory to Ukraine”. Russian troops fired shots into the air and threw stun grenades, but failed to disperse the rally.

Mayor Yuri Fomichov, released by the Russians after hours in detention, joined the protesters. He said:

In captivity, I negotiated with the occupiers. It was agreed that if it is confirmed that our military is not in the city, everything will be calm.

Slavutych remains under the Ukrainian flag!

However, the Ukrainian military and police are no longer in the city, and Russian forces have instructed people to hand over any weapons.

UPDATE 1113 GMT:

Addressing the Doha Forum in Qatar by video link, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked energy-producing countries to increase output, ensuring that Russia cannot use its oil and gas for “blackmail”.

Zelenskiy added that no country is secure from disruptions to food supply because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s largest agricultural producers.

The President also linked Russia’s tactics in Ukraine to its military intervention in Syria, supporting the Assad regime, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians.

UPDATE 1105 GMT:

Ukrainian Defense Ministry official Markian Lubkivskyi is sceptical about the Russian declaration of a pullback from its initial objective to occupy most of Ukraine; however, he said the invaders do appear to be focusing on the east of the country.

We cannot believe the statements from Moscow because there’s still a lot of untruth and lies from that side. That’s why we understand the goal of Putin still is the whole of Ukraine.

UPDATE 1045 GMT:

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu has spoken in public for the first time in two weeks.

In a video from the Defense Ministry, a tired-looking Shoygu was shown chairing an army meeting and discussing weapons supplies, the military budget, and defense orders.

The Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov — also unseen in public recently — was among the attendees.

Shoigu appeared on screen in clip of a meeting between Vladimir Putin, and his Security Council on Thursday. Before that, his last appearance in public was on March 11.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russia’s Vladimir Putin may be pulling back on his invasion to topple the Zelenskiy Government and occupy most of Ukraine.

The signal came in a Russian Defense Ministry briefing on Friday. Covering up any retreat from the initial objectives, the Ministry declared that the objectives in the first phase of the invasion “have generally been accomplished”, and that operations will now focus on the “liberation” of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

The Ministry then asserted that Russia’s proxies now control 93% of the Luhansk oblast and 54% of Donetsk: “The combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which…makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbas.”

In the first days of its war, the Russian assault failed in Plan A to put special forces into the capital Kyiv and to detain or kill leaders like Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The Russian offensives then tried to surround and invade cities such as Kyiv and Kharkiv, but failed to do so outside the southern corridor along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. Suffering serious problems with supply and logistics, convoys have stalled and taken up defensive positions.

Up to 15,000 Russian troops have been killed, including seven generals and an admiral. Adding the personnel who are wounded, captured, or missing, Russia has lost up to 20% of its invasion force.

Another general, Vlaislav Yershov of the 6th Combined Arms Army, has been dismissed. A Russian commander was reportedly “run over” and killed by his own troops, “as a consequence of the scale of losses that had been taken by his brigade”.

In the south, the Russian offensive has occupied the cities of Kherson and Melitopol. After a four-week siege, it is on the verge of seizing Mariupol, at the eastern end of the coastal corridor, where up to 150,000 residents remain at risk of starvation with no heat, water, or electricity. Claims circulated on Friday that Russia has connected Crimea, which it has occupied since 2014, with its proxy areas in the Donbass.

But even in the south, Russia is facing difficulties. It failed in a protracted attempt to capture the city of Mykolaiv, just north of the corridor on the Dnieper River, and it has not advanced on Odessa on the western end of the corridor. Troops in Kherson have not been able to suppress anti-occupation rallies, and Ukraine forces blew up a landing ship in the port of Berdyansk on Thursday.

Meanwhile, local officials in Mariupol say at least 300 people were killed in the Russian bombing of the Drama Theater on March 16.

Up to 1,300 people — including women, children, and the elderly — were sheltering in the theater when it was destroyed.

Rescue efforts were hampered for days by ongoing Russian sheltering, with confirmation of only 150 survivors.

Zelenskiy: No Surrender

In his video address to the nation on Friday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine will not surrender any territory — “The Ukrainian people won’t accept otherwise” — even as he urged Putin to negotiate an end to war.

The armed forces continue to repel enemy attacks, in the south of the country, in Donbas, in the Kharkiv direction and in the Kyiv region.

By restraining Russia’s actions, our defenders are leading the Russian leadership to a simple and logical idea: talk is necessary. Meaningful, urgent, fair.

French President Emmanuel Macron set up an initial test of Putin’s intentions, saying that he is working with France and Turkey to ensure the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol: “I will have a new discussion with President Vladimir Putin within the next 48 to 72 hours to work out the details and secure the modalities.”

Meanwhile, in a follow-up to Thursday’s NATO summit, US President Joe Biden visited the Polish town of Rzeszów, about an hour from the Ukrainian border, to show support for Ukraine and for its neighbors in eastern Europe.

As European countries debate the pace of any reduction in oil and gas supplies from Russia, Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the US will provide “at least” 15bn cubic meters of liquefied natural gas to the European Union in 2022.

Putin Complains About “Cancel Culture”

Putin further betrayed his concern in a Friday speech, adopting the attack line of Western right-wing groups of “cancel culture”.

At the televised meeting with cultural figures, Putin declared that the West is “trying to cancel a whole 1,000-year culture, our people”: “They’re now engaging in the cancel culture, even removing Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov from posters. Russian writers and books are now cancelled.”

Putin cited book burning by supporters of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and then invoked Harry Potter:

Recently they cancelled the children’s writer Joanne Rowling because she – the author of books that have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide – fell out of favor with fans of so-called gender freedoms.

Rowling responded:

Putin backed up his speech with the signature of a bill confirmed prison sentences terms of up to 15 years for “fake” information about Russian actions abroad.

Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov also pointed to Moscow’s worries with a statement about international sanctions putting pressure on the Russian economy:

Today, a genuine hybrid war, a “total war” has been declared against us. This term, which was exploited by Hitler’s Germany, is now pronounced by many European politicians when talking about what they want to do with Russia.

The goals are not concealed, they are publicly announced, that is to destroy, devastate, ruin, and suffocate the Russian economy and Russia as a whole.