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The United States pressed allies to further ramp up military support for Ukraine on Tuesday, with the clash between the West and the Kremlin once again entering the spotlight after Russia warned of the "real" danger of World War III.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pledged to “move heaven and earth” to help Kyiv win the war as he opened a meeting of NATO defense officials at a U.S. air base in Germany.
Meanwhile, officials in Poland and Bulgaria said Russia is suspending natural gas deliveries starting Wednesday, which would be the first since Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded payment in rubles instead of dollars and euros.
Putin was reported to have agreed "in principle” to United Nations and Red Cross involvement in any evacuation of civilians out of a besieged steel plant in Mariupol, but more discussions will be held, the world body said.
Moscow’s top diplomat warned that the threat of nuclear war “should not be underestimated” and said Western weapons shipments were legitimate targets, accusing NATO of having effectively “entered into a war with Russia through proxies.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s latest rhetorical escalation underscored the stakes as Ukraine’s allies rush to send heavy weapons and equipment to battle Moscow’s new offensive in the country’s east and south.
Russia does not control skies, attacks on Mariupol are unguided bombs, U.K. says
Russia’s military does not control most of the airspace over Ukraine and the airstrikes it is conducting in Mariupol likely involved unguided free-falling bombs, the United Kingdom's defense ministry said Wednesday.
“These weapons reduce Russia’s ability to effectively discriminate when conducting strikes, increasing the risk of civilian casualties,” the ministry said in its daily intelligence update.
The statement said the U.K. assesses Ukrainian forces pose a threat to Russian aircraft, but the ministry did not go into greater detail.
The United States and the U.K. have announced pledges to send weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, to Ukraine.
Russia has also launched more than 1,600 missiles against Ukraine since it attacked and invaded Feb. 24, a U.S. Defense Department official said Thursday.
International Atomic Energy Agency team to assess, make repairs at Chernobyl
A team from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Ukraine on Tuesday to assess the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and make repairs following its seizure and occupation by Russian troops, officials said.
Russia’s military seized Chernobyl, the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster, on the first day of its Feb. 24 attack and invasion of Ukraine. They held it for around five weeks before withdrawing in late March.
“The IAEA will continue to support Ukraine,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said, according to a statement.
The team will repair remote data control systems which were disabled, will make assessments at the site and will deliver protective equipment, the IAEA said.
Tuesday marked the 36th anniversary of the April 26, 1986, disaster at a reactor at the now-decommissioned nuclear power plant. It is surrounded by a large exclusion zone, and the site requires radiological monitoring by workers.
Grossi told a news conference that he saw some of the excavations dug in the vicinity of the plant. “It is visible that there is damage, and we are assessing that because our job is to give precise information,” Grossi said.
Chinese drone maker DJI suspends sales in Russia, Ukraine
Chinese drone maker DJI says it is temporarily suspending all sales in Russia and Ukraine to make sure that its devices are not being used in combat or for military purposes.
DJI in a statement Tuesday said that it was pausing sales “in light of current hostilities.”
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News, but told the news agency Reuters that it was suspending sales "to help ensure no-one uses our drones in combat.”
It was not clear if DJI had any information that its drones have been used for military purposes.
The drone maker has said that it abhors any attempt to use its drones to cause harm, that it does not market or sell them for military use and does not allow its business partners to do so.
DJI, headquartered in Shenzhen, is the biggest maker of consumer and commercial drones in the world.
U.S. embassy staffers travel to Ukraine ahead of Kyiv return
U.S. embassy staff members traveled from Poland to Ukraine on Tuesday as the State Department prepares to resume operations in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
The U.S. evacuated staff members from Kyiv ahead of Russia’s Feb. 24 attack and invasion. U.S. staff members have been in Poland. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier Tuesday that U.S diplomats would return this week and would first be based out of Lviv.
The embassy tweeted that Tuesday's trip was "a first step ahead of more regular travel in the immediate future." The deputy chief of mission and members of the embassy team traveled to Lviv, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
U.S. announces $10M reward, wants info on 6 Russians in 2017 cyberattack
The U.S. announced a $10 million reward Tuesday for information about six Russian officials accused in a 2017 cyberattack that infected computers worldwide.
The six officers of Russia’s intelligence service were charged criminally in absentia in the U.S. in 2020 in connection with the 2017 NotPetya malware attack.
The attack has been called the most destructive and costly in history. It caused almost $1 billion in damage to three U.S. companies, including a Pennsylvania hospital system, alone, according to the Justice Department.
The Treasury Department imposed sanctions in 2018 over the cyberattack.
The State Department said in announcing the reward Tuesday that all six officers work for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, or GRU. The six were also indicted in the U.S. in connection with cyberattacks that caused blackouts in Ukraine.
Russia suspending gas supplies to Poland, Bulgaria
WARSAW, Poland — Officials in Poland and Bulgaria say Russia is suspending their countries’ natural gas deliveries starting Wednesday.
The governments of the two European countries said Tuesday that Russian energy giant Gazprom informed them it was halting gas supplies.
The suspensions would be the first since Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that “unfriendly” foreign buyers would have to pay the state-owned Gazprom in rubles instead of other currencies.
Europe imports large amounts of Russian natural gas to heat homes, generate electricity and fuel industry. The imports have continued despite the war in Ukraine. Putin’s demand was apparently intended to help bolster the Russian currency amid the war in Ukraine.
Blinken: 'Russia has failed' in what it set out to do in Ukraine
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that "Russia has failed" in its mission to eliminate Ukrainian sovereignty.
Blinken said that he is not predicting a scenario in which Ukraine loses its sovereignty and that the country and its allies are looking toward long-term sustainability in self-defense.
"It’s important to try to make sure that when that is accomplished, Russia is not in a position to repeat this exercise next month, next year or in five years," Blinken said.