News from Ukraine is as chaotic as reported conditions there.
The Chernobyl nuclear plant site has been knocked off the power grid; its cooling systems are operating on backup power.
CNN reports that Ukraine “has agreed to a 12-hour ceasefire with Russia on Wednesday to allow civilians to escape through humanitarian corridors.” That is, if the agreement holds.
A surprise Polish proposal to transfer 28 MiG-29 fighter planes to the U.S. for transfer to Ukraine has been dismissed by the U.S. as not “tenable.”
“Conditions in the port of Mariupol have been described as ‘apocalyptic,’” reports The Guardian, “where hundreds of thousands of residents have been sheltering from brutal Russian shelling and missile attacks for more than a week without water, power or heating. Phone signals are also down.”
Yaroslava Kaminska, her husband and grandparents from the village of Nemishayevo outside Kyiv have been sheltering in their home to avoid shelling and snipers. They were “naive idiots” to believe Russian troops would not come there, and have lacked water, electricity and heat since Feb. 28. “This is not war; this is extermination,” she said.
Ukraine continues to release videos created to display determination to resist occupation and to inspire support.
From all of his time reporting from war zones, CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Lviv told Stephen Colbert on Monday, “I’ve never seen a country as determined and unified.”
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told ABC News he is prepared to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and neighboring states over security guarantees for Ukraine and the future of Crimea and Donbas. But he condemned Russian talk of “denazification” as no more than a goal to wipe Ukraine from the map.
The wounded and dead remain undercounted.
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