Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Putin prepared for ‘prolonged conflict,’ war could grow more volatile in coming months, U.S. says

A top U.S. intelligence official on Tuesday warned of a “prolonged” and “potentially escalatory” conflict in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s objectives probably go beyond capturing the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, and include consolidating control of a land bridge between Russia, Donbas and Russian-held Crimea to the south, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said.

Here are updates from key cities:

Izyum: A Ukrainian official said Tuesday that 44 bodies have been pulled from the rubble of a building in Izyum, a strategically important town that has been at the center of Russia’s military advance in the eastern Donbas region. The bodies were found under the debris of a five-story building destroyed by Russian forces in the first week of March, local governor Oleh Sinegubov said.

Kherson: Russian authorities are probably preparing to integrate occupied Ukrainian territories, such as Kherson, directly into Russia — rather than creating proxy “People’s Republics,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said. Kherson was the first major city to fall to Russian forces that swept into the country in late February.

Mariupol: Ukrainian fighters holed up at a steel plant in the city made a plea Tuesday for help evacuating their wounded, as heavy Russian airstrikes and shelling continued, hitting a field hospital at the complex. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his government had tried “all possible diplomatic tools” to rescue the Ukrainian soldiers but that Russia had not agreed to any plans. The Pentagon said Monday that the equivalent of two Russian battalion tactical groups are still in the shattered port city — with 700 to 900 in each group — down from about a dozen last month as the troops are deployed to battles elsewhere in the south and east.

Odessa: Photos showed firefighters combing through debris, rescuing animals and searching for civilians who may be trapped under the wreckage after at least four high-precision Onyx missiles struck this port city in Ukraine’s west on Monday.

Paulina Villegas, David L. Stern, Adam Taylor, Amy Cheng and Jennifer Hassan contributed to this report.

A top U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday that between eight and 10 Russian generals have been killed while fighting in Ukraine, an extraordinarily high number for a conflict that is less than three months old.

The toll is due in part to the unusual role Russian military leaders have had to play on the Ukrainian battlefield, Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier, director the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Instead of commanding forces from afar, Berrier said, Moscow’s generals have had to travel to the front to ensure their orders are carried out.

But the American intelligence community has also shared vital information with the Ukrainian military, officials have said. In one high-profile instance, U.S. intelligence helped Kyiv target a key Russian warship, the Moskva. And the New York Times has reported that the United States has furnished information that allowed Ukraine to kill several generals.

The Pentagon has denied that it specifically helps Ukraine target Russian military officials or assets, saying U.S. intelligence is meant to “help Ukrainians defend their country.”

“We do not provide intelligence on the location of senior military leaders on the battlefield or participate in the targeting decisions of the Ukrainian military,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said last week. “Ukraine combines information that we and other partners provide with the intelligence that they themselves are gathering on the battlefield, and then they make their own decisions and they take their own actions.”

Heavy Russian airstrikes and shelling continued Tuesday in Mariupol, according to the chief of the Donetsk regional police, striking a field hospital in the Azovstal steel plant where the shattered city’s last Ukrainian defenders remain.

“The aviation strikes don’t stop,” Mykhailo Vershynin, who is inside the plant, told The Washington Post. “Since the morning, the shelling from tanks, artillery, aviation, naval artillery — the shelling is all the time.”

The police chief also disputed figures given by local Ukrainian officials, who said more than 100 civilians and more than 1,000 soldiers remained at the besieged plant. Vershynin said the 100 figure was wrong, without giving further detail.

However, he said there are more than 500 wounded people, a number that is increasing “every day.”

The Azov Regiment made a desperate plea, to the government of Ukraine and to the world, to evacuate the wounded troops.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that his government had tried “all possible diplomatic tools” to rescue the Ukrainian soldiers that remain in the plant, but that Russia had not agreed to any of the proposed plans.

A top U.S. intelligence official on Tuesday warned that with no clear end in sight the Ukraine-Russia war could grow even more volatile in the next several months.

Putin is believed to be prepared for a “prolonged” conflict in Ukraine, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The next month or two will be significant, Haines said, as Russian forces look to regroup after its unsuccessful attempt to capture Kyiv and could move the war along a more “unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory.”

In the short term, she told senators to prepare for more “ad hoc” decisions from Russia as it figures out how to achieve its aims in the face of fierce resistance by Ukrainian forces.

The Russian president’s objectives extend beyond capturing the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and include consolidating control of a land bridge between Russia, Donbas region and Russian-held Crimea to the south, she said.

Haines said other goals include occupying Kherson in the south and controlling the waters in the Black Sea off Crimea. The aim of extending a land bridge to Transnistria, a breakaway region the international community recognizes as part of Moldova, is unlikely to succeed, she said.

Haines anticipates Putin could seek retaliation for western economic sanctions in the form of cybersecurity attacks and authorizing a new round of nuclear weapons exercises.

“[Putin] is probably counting on U.S. and E.U. resolve to weaken as food shortages, inflation and energy shortages get worse,” she said.

During an Oval Office meeting at the White House, Biden and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi voiced solidarity in their support for Ukraine and spoke of the importance of maintaining a united front against Russian.

Biden, who has made a concerted effort to coordinate the response against Russia among allies, thanked Draghi for being “a good friend and a great ally.”

Draghi, speaking in English, thanked Biden for the “great hospitality.”

“The ties between our two countries will always be strong. And if anything, this war in Ukraine has made them stronger,” Draghi said. “(Russian President Vladimir) Putin thought he could divide us. He failed.”

The House will vote Tuesday night on approving nearly $40 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said.

“Time is of the essence — and we cannot afford to wait,” said Pelosi in a memo to House Democrats. “With this aid package, America sends a resounding message to the world of our unwavering determination to stand with the courageous people of Ukraine until victory is won.”

The package includes $33 billion in security, economic and humanitarian assistance to the Ukrainian government that President Biden requested last month. It also includes a supplemental bill, introduced by Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), to provide additional aid to address, among many issues, global food insecurity as a result of the war in Ukraine, bringing the total to nearly $40 billion.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has cost thousands of innocent lives, devastated cities across the region, and fueled a humanitarian crisis, rising costs, and food insecurity around the world,” DeLauro, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement. “We have a moral responsibility to deliver this support to help end the grievous loss of life, hold Putin and his cronies accountable, and protect global democracy.”

The United States, the European Union and Britain are blaming Russia for a cyberattack that crippled a satellite Internet company, resulting in the disruption of service for tens of thousands of satellite modems in Ukraine and other European countries at the outset of Russia’s war in Ukraine on Feb. 24.

“The United States is joining with allies and partners to condemn Russia’s destructive cyber activities against Ukraine,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

The attack on the U.S.-based Internet satellite firm Viasat was one of Moscow’s boldest cyber offensives of the conflict, disrupting communications in Ukraine just an hour before Russian forces marched in, the E.U. said in a separate statement.

The Washington Post first reported in March that U.S. intelligence analysts concluded that Russia was behind the attack, which also knocked out service for thousands of European wind turbines, but the United States was not ready to make a public attribution at the time.

Blinken said the United States has developed new mechanisms to help Ukraine identify cyberthreats and recover from attacks.

“We have also enhanced our support for Ukraine’s digital connectivity, including by providing satellite phones and data terminals to Ukrainian government officials, essential service providers, and critical infrastructure operators,” he said. “We praise Ukraine’s efforts — both in and outside of government — to defend against and recover from such activity, even as its country is under physical attack.”

The Finnish Parliament’s defense committee recommended NATO membership Tuesday, taking a key step ahead of the country’s official decision on whether to join the Western military alliance that could come as soon as this week.

The defense committee concluded that Finland’s military alignment with the alliance is the country’s best security strategy, as it would help deter Russia from targeting Finland, Al Jazeera reported.

“Membership in NATO is the best solution for Finland’s security. It strengthens Finland’s national defense capability with the support of the union’s significant military resources,” Petteri Orpo of the National Coalition party, the committee’s chairman and Parliament’s main opposition leader, said in a statement.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto is expected to announce on Thursday his stance on joining NATO, which, if favorable, would mean a historical shift in security policy for the traditionally nonaligned Nordic country, and a serious blow to Russia.

The anticipated announcement will probably lead NATO to extend a formal invitation to Finland, paving the way for formal application procedures for the country to become part of the 30-member alliance to begin right away. The process could take up to a year.

Neighboring Sweden is also expected to decide to join NATO in the upcoming days.

This expansion would double NATO’s land border with Russia, increasing the military alliance’s frontier to the far north and around the Baltic Sea — a serious setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has described NATO expansion as a threat to Russian security

Putin cited NATO’s previous expansion in Eastern Europe — and the possibility of Ukraine joining the alliance — among the reasons for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24

Media coverage of war has come a long way. In the 1960s, Walter Cronkite brought the Vietnam War to American living rooms, making it the first televised war. In the ’90s, CNN became the first network to broadcast 24/7 live coverage of the Gulf War. Since then, the media landscape has changed, namely with the birth of the Internet. So when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the Internet was flooded with images of war and newsrooms scrambled.

Coverage efforts — including this live file, which runs 24 hours a day from our newsrooms in Washington, London and Seoul — were strained. Reporters at The Post were gathering information from correspondents on the ground as well as open sources such as social media and satellite imagery. But social media is a double-edged sword, and while it is a great way to access information, it’s also easy to spread false information.

“[This] makes the role of the professional journalist even more important, because otherwise we’re not going to know how to sort out truth from fiction,” said Bruce Shapiro, executive director at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

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