Foreign news
The White House has quietly assembled a team of national security officials to sketch out scenarios of how the United States and its allies should respond if President Vladimir Putin of Russia — frustrated by his lack of progress in Ukraine or determined to warn Western nations against intervening in the war — unleashes his stockpiles of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, the New York Times has reported.
The Tiger Team, as the group is known, is also examining responses if Putin reaches into NATO territory to attack convoys bringing weapons and aid to Ukraine, according to several officials involved in the process. Meeting three times a week, in classified sessions, the team is also looking at responses if Russia seeks to extend the war to neighboring nations, including Moldova and Georgia, and how to prepare European countries for the refugees flowing in on a scale not seen in decades.
Those contingencies are expected to be central to an extraordinary session in Brussels on Thursday, when President Biden meets leaders of the 29 other NATO nations, who will be meeting for the first time — behind closed doors, their cellphones and aides banished — since Putin invaded Ukraine.
Just a month ago, such scenarios seemed more theoretical. But today, from the White House to NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, a recognition has set in that Russia may turn to the most powerful weapons in its arsenal to bail itself out of a military stalemate.
NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, underscored the urgency of the preparation effort on Wednesday, telling reporters for the first time that even if the Russians employ weapons of mass destruction only inside Ukraine, they may have “dire consequences” for people in NATO nations. He appeared to be discussing the fear that chemical or radioactive clouds could drift over the border. One issue under examination is whether such collateral damage would be considered an “attack” on NATO under its charter, which might require a joint military response.
The current team was established in a memo signed by Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, on Feb. 28, four days after the invasion began, according to the officials involved in the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive planning. A previous iteration had worked for months, behind the scenes, to prepare the U.S. government for the likelihood of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
That team played a central role in devising the playbooks of deep sanctions, troop buildups in NATO nations and arming the Ukrainian military, which have exploited Russian weaknesses and put its government and economy under tremendous pressure.
Stoltenberg, sounding far more hawkish than in the past, said he expected “allies will agree to provide additional support, including cybersecurity assistance and equipment to help Ukraine protect against chemical, biological, radiologic and nuclear threats.”
As Biden flew to Europe on Wednesday, both he and Stoltenberg warned of growing evidence that Russia was in fact preparing to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
These are questions that Europe has not confronted since the depths of the Cold War, when NATO had far fewer members, and Western Europe worried about a Soviet attack headed into Germany. But few of the leaders set to meet in Brussels on Thursday ever had to deal with those scenarios — and many have never had to think about nuclear deterrence or the effects of the detonation of battlefield nuclear weapons, designed to be less powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima. The fear is that Russia is more likely to use those weapons, precisely because they erode the distinction between conventional and nuclear arms.
Jack Reed, Senator (Rhode Island Democrat) who heads the Armed Services Committee, said on Wednesday that if Putin used a weapon of mass destruction — chemical, biological or nuclear — “there would be consequences” even if the weapon’s use was confined to Ukraine. Reed said radiation from a nuclear weapon, for instance, could waft into a neighboring NATO country and be considered an attack on a NATO member.
“It’s going to be a very difficult call, but it’s a call that not just the president but the entire NATO Council will have to make,” Reed told reporters, referring to the governing body of the Western alliance.
“The bottom line is this is a NATO decision,” Reed said. “It won’t be the president’s decision alone. I don’t think he’d want to take action unilaterally.”
One major issue the Tiger Team is looking at is the threshold that could prompt the alliance to use military force in Ukraine. Biden has made clear that he is enormously reluctant to to do so, fearing that direct confrontation with Russia could escalate the conflict beyond control. “That’s World War III,” he noted recently.
A second team of officials, also created by Sullivan’s Feb. 28 memo, is looking at long-term opportunities for the United States to improve its geopolitical position as a result of Putin’s invasion. Inside the White House, it has become an article of faith that the Russian leader made a huge strategic error — one that will diminish Russia’s standing, cripple its economy and alienate potential allies for years. But it is early in the conflict, other officials caution, and that conclusion may prove premature.
The immediate concern is what Putin may do next — driven by a desire to rescue a failing military effort or re-establish his credentials as a force to be feared.
Officials believe the chances that Putin will resort to detonating a nuclear weapon are small. But Russia’s steady stream of reminders that it has its arsenal at the ready, and could use it in response to anything it perceives as an “existential threat,” has put Washington on high alert.
Biden will take up with allies “how to deal with the rhetoric and the commentary coming out of Russia on this whole question of the potential use of nuclear weapons,” Sullivan told reporters on Wednesday.
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments
“We haven’t seen anything that’s made us adjust our posture, our nuclear posture, but it is of course something we will have to continue to stay in close consultation with allies and partners on, as well as communicate directly to the Russians.”
Several officials said the White House and Pentagon have had some tension over how much detail the Defense Department is willing to share on its highly secretive war planning — especially concerning responses to any use of nuclear weapons — even in the classified setting of the Tiger Team. (The term has been used for many years to describe an emergency task force inside the National Security Council.)
A U.S. official said Biden remained adamant about keeping American forces out of Ukraine. But the official said the administration believed it would be misguided not to closely examine the thresholds, if any, under which the president would reverse himself, or to be prepared to deal with the consequences of the use of weapons of mass destruction.
A senior administration official said any use of a “small” tactical nuclear bomb by Russia — even inside Ukraine and not directed at a NATO member — would mean that “all bets are off” on the United States and NATO staying out of the war. But when pushed, the official declined to lay out the responses under discussion.
The official said American and NATO intelligence communities had not seen any activity by Russian military officials that suggested preparations to use a nuclear weapon. But he said that during internal discussions, administration officials were urging caution, because there was more at stake than just Ukraine.
If Putin did strike a NATO country intentionally, he would not only bring the force of the military alliance to bear on Russia, but also probably find himself facing NATO troops inside Ukraine, Artis Pabriks, Latvia’s defense minister, told reporters traveling in his country this month with Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“He will get Article 5,” Pabriks said, in a reference to the NATO pledge that an attack on one alliance member is an attack on all.
“If he gets that, basically that would also make us involved in Ukraine,” Pabriks said, adding: “He has no way out of that. So I don’t think he should be so stupid.”
Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent and a member of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, visited the Polish-Ukrainian border over the weekend, meeting with officials from allied countries, visiting a refugee processing center and talking with Ukrainians. King said that as Russian forces struggle to make headway, Putin could try to strike a diplomatic agreement, intensify his bombardment of Ukrainian cities and level them, or lash out against the West with a cyberattack.
“The fourth is escalate to de-escalate, which is a tactical nuclear weapon,” King said, using the term for a Russian military doctrine in which it would employ a nuclear weapon as a warning — and then negotiate.
Reuters reports the Kremlin on Wednesday said any possible contact between the Russian military and NATO forces could have grave consequences, after Poland last week said peacekeepers should be sent to Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Poland’s idea was reckless and extremely dangerous.
“Any possible confrontation between our troops and NATO forces could have clear consequences that would be hard to repair,” Peskov told reporters.
Stockmarkets took a breather on Friday after several days of sizeable gains, while commodities were set on edge by the lack of progress in Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations.
Reuters report that Oil rose sharply and back over $100 overnight and Brent crude futures were up another 2% to $108.73 in early trade. Commodity exporters' currencies rose with it.
S&P 500 futures fell 0.6% in Asia. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) eased 0.6% in early trade, but were headed for a 3% weekly gain. Japan's Nikkei (.N225) rose 0.2%.
"It's very difficult to get any confidence that you're going to be able to reliably source commodities out of Russia or Ukraine," said Tobin Gorey, a commodities strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.
"You're going to be looking elsewhere and that just tends to get priced up."
The war in Ukraine has settled into a grinding pattern of siege.
Sentiment had been supported by Russia appearing to make a dollar bond coupon payment - avoiding default - and previous comments from Moscow about a deal with Ukraine being close.
However, after a fourth straight day of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, messaging from both sides suggested agreement remained some way off.
Wheat and corn futures, which are sensitive to Black Sea supply disruptions, bounced sharply overnight.
The Bank of England also raised interest rates on Thursday, as expected, but turned dovish in its outlook amid worries that soaring commodities will hurt growth and demand.
Gilts rallied after the decision and sterling briefly fell as traders turned less sure about future hikes.
The Treasury market is likewise sounding a warning on the outlook, with the yield curve flattening and flirting with inversion as investors think rate hikes that the Federal Reserve began on Wednesday will end up hurting growth.
Benchmark 10-year yields were steady at 2.1813%.
CHINA STEADIES
Wall Street indexes rose overnight to close out their biggest three-session percentage gains since November 2020. The S&P 500 (.SPX) and Dow Jones (.DJI) each rose 1.2% and the Nasdaq 1.3%.
China markets on Friday eased into the end of one of the wildest weeks in decades.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng (.HSI) followed its worst session in more than six years with its biggest two-day rally since 1998 after China's top financial policymaker promised policy easing and a gentler approach to market-sensitive reform in future.
Investors now await actions to follow his words and on Friday the Hang Seng opened 1% lower while the mainland blue-chip CSI300 (.CSI300) was down 0.5% in early trade.
In currency markets, the U.S. dollar was eying its first weekly loss in six weeks as hope for an end to the war has lifted the euro and as commodity exporters' currencies have benefited from higher prices.
The euro was steady at $1.1093 and up 1.7% for the week. The Australian dollar , which caught an additional boost from stellar employment data on Thursday, hit an almost two-week high of $0.7394.
The yen is on course for a second consecutive weekly loss of more than 1% and last traded at 118.73 to the dollar.
The Bank of Japan concludes a two-day meeting later on Friday and, unlike the rest of the world, is expected to keep policy ultra-easy for some time yet.
Russia warned the United States on Thursday that Moscow had the might to put the world’s pre-eminent superpower in its place and accused the West of stoking a wild Russophobic plot to tear Russia apart.
Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said the United States had stoked “disgusting” Russophobia in an attempt to force Russia to its knees in a Reuters report.
“It will not work - Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place,” Medvedev said.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the United States and its European and Asian allies have slapped sanctions on Russian leaders, companies and businessmen, cutting off Russia from much of the world economy.
President Vladimir Putin says that what he calls the special military operation in Ukraine was necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Russia had to defend against the “genocide” of Russian-speaking people by Ukraine.
Ukraine says it is fighting for its existence and that Putin’s claims of genocide are nonsense. The West says claims it wants to rip Russia apart are fiction.
Russia says that despite sanctions it can fare well without what it casts as a deceitful and decadent West led by the United States. It says its bid to forge ties with the West after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union is now over and that it will develop ties with other powers such as China.
The Ukrainian General Prosecutor's office says ten people were killed while standing in line for bread in the northern city of Chernihiv, according to an Associated Press report.
Satellite images from the Maxar space technology company showed Russian self-propelled artillery and multiple-rocket launchers deployed on the outskirts of Chernihiv, their barrels and tubes aimed at the city.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter that the attack on the theater in Mariupol is a “horrendous war crime.” Maxar’s satellite imagery from Monday showed the word “children” written in large white letters in Russian in front of and behind the building.
Meanwhile, the Russian defense ministry denied bombing the theater or anywhere else in Mariupol on Wednesday.
In central Kyiv, shrapnel from an artillery shell smashed into a 12-story apartment building early Wednesday, wiping out the building’s top floor and starting a fire. Emergency services reported two victims from the blaze, without specifying if they were killed or injured.
Fighting continued in Kyiv’s suburbs, depriving thousands of heat and clean water.
A Russian airstrike destroyed multiple residential apartments in the town of Markhalivka southwest of the capital, authorities said.
Russia now occupies the city of Ivankiv, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Kyiv, and controls the surrounding region on the border with Belarus, local officials said.
Relentless strikes pounded the northeastern city of Kharkiv close to the Russian border, but Ukrainian forces continued to thwart Russia’s incursion into the heart of the city, city officials said.
Powerful explosions also thundered in the region around Kherson, a strategic port near the Black Sea. Ukrainian military forces have dealt a punishing blow to Russian air assets stationed at the airport in Kherson, which Russian troops seized early in the war, the Ukraine military’s General Staff said late Wednesday.
Satellite photos by Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press show helicopters and vehicles on fire at the air base after what Ukraine said was its strike on Tuesday.
There were also explosions near a train station in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, home to several power stations.
The region “is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe,” Zelenskyy’s office warned.
In Mariupol, workers afraid for their own lives brave relentless shelling to dump the bodies of children in a mass grave. Local officials struggle to account for the dead. Although they’ve tallied 2,500 deaths in the siege, many bodies crushed in the rubble can’t be counted because of the assault.
Bodies lie out in the street. Workers tell families to leave their dead outside because it’s too dangerous to hold funerals.
In Kharkiv, doctors are struggling to treat Covid-19 patients as the bombs fall outside. Several times a day, air raid sirens wail at the Kharkiv Regional Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital, sending feeble virus patients — some connected to ventilators and struggling to breathe — running for bomb shelters.
“Bombing takes place from morning into night,” hospital director Pavel Nartov said. “It could hit at any time.”
HOW IS THE WORLD RESPONDING TO THE WAR?
Six Western nations have called for a U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine on Thursday. The United Kingdom’s U.N. Mission tweeted Wednesday that the six countries asked for the meeting, saying: “Russia is committing war crimes and targeting civilians. Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine is a threat to us all.”
The mission said the meeting was requested by six Security Council members and posted their flags -- the U.K., United States, France, Ireland, Norway and Albania. It has not yet been officially scheduled.
Zelenskyy acknowledged in his speech to the U.S. Congress that the no-fly zone he has sought to “close the sky” over his country may not happen. Still, he said the U.S. must sanction Russian lawmakers and block imports, in addition to providing military assistance.
“We need you right now,” Zelenskyy said in remarks livestreamed to the U.S. Capitol, which were punctuated with a graphic video contrasting Ukraine before the invasion with the grisly aftermath.
In an unprecedented move, the Council of Europe expelled Russia from the continent’s foremost human rights body. Staff even went outside its headquarters in Strasbourg, France, and took down the Russian flag.
Tiny Kox, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said the expulsion “was necessary, and I am glad we dared to do so.”
Putin said Wednesday that the operation in Ukraine is unfolding “successfully, in strict accordance with pre-approved plans.”
But with the Ukrainian resistance frustrating Kremlin hopes for a lightning victory, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that a “business-like spirit” has emerged in talks with Ukrainian officials, which he described as focused on a “neutral status” for Ukraine’s military.
The leaders of three European countries, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, returned on Wednesday from a risky trip to the besieged Ukrainian capital to show their support and meet with Zelenskyy.
Biden announced that the U.S. is sending an additional $800 million in military assistance — including anti-aircraft and anti-armor weapons and drones — to Ukraine, making a total of $2 billion in such aid sent to Kyiv since Biden took office more than a year ago.
Biden also plans to travel to Europe next week for talks with European leaders about the Russian invasion, and will attend an extraordinary NATO summit in Brussels. NATO has been bolstering its eastern flank with troops and equipment to deter Russia from invading any of its members.
Japan announced it will revoke its “most favored nation” trade status for Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking experiment, the Maryland hospital that performed the surgery announced Wednesday.
David Bennett, 57, died Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Doctors didn’t give an exact cause of death, saying only that his condition had begun deteriorating several days earlier.
Bennett’s son praised the hospital for offering the last-ditch experiment, saying the family hoped it would help further efforts to end the organ shortage.
“We are grateful for every innovative moment, every crazy dream, every sleepless night that went into this historic effort,” David Bennett Jr. said in a statement released by the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “We hope this story can be the beginning of hope and not the end.”
Doctors for decades have sought to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants. Bennett, a handyman from Hagerstown, Maryland, was a candidate for this newest attempt only because he otherwise faced certain death — ineligible for a human heart transplant, bedridden and on life support, and out of other options.
After the Jan. 7 operation, Bennett’s son told The Associated Press his father knew there was no guarantee it would work.
Prior attempts at such transplants -- or xenotransplantation -- have failed largely because patients’ bodies rapidly rejected the animal organ. This time, the Maryland surgeons used a heart from a gene-edited pig: Scientists had modified the animal to remove pig genes that trigger the hyper-fast rejection and add human genes to help the body accept the organ.
At first the pig heart was functioning, and the Maryland hospital issued periodic updates that Bennett seemed to be slowly recovering. Last month, the hospital released video of him watching the Super Bowl from his hospital bed while working with his physical therapist.
Bennett survived significantly longer with the gene-edited pig heart than one of the last milestones in xenotransplantation -- when Baby Fae, a dying California infant, lived 21 days with a baboon’s heart in 1984.
“We are devastated by the loss of Mr. Bennett. He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought all the way to the end,” Dr. Bartley Griffith, who performed the surgery at the Baltimore hospital, said in a statement.
The need for another source of organs is huge. More than 41,000 transplants were performed in the U.S. last year, a record -- including about 3,800 heart transplants. But more than 106,000 people remain on the national waiting list, thousands die every year before getting an organ and thousands more never even get added to the list, considered too much of a long shot.
The Food and Drug Administration had allowed the dramatic Maryland experiment under “compassionate use” rules for emergency situations. Bennett’s doctors said he had heart failure and an irregular heartbeat, plus a history of not complying with medical instructions. He was deemed ineligible for a human heart transplant that requires strict use of immune-suppressing medicines, or the remaining alternative, an implanted heart pump.
Doctors didn’t reveal the exact cause of Bennett’s death. Rejection, infection and other complications are risks for transplant recipients.
But from Bennett’s experience, “we have gained invaluable insights learning that the genetically modified pig heart can function well within the human body while the immune system is adequately suppressed,” said Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the Maryland university’s animal-to-human transplant program.
One next question is whether scientists have learned enough from Bennett’s experience and some other recent experiments with gene-edited pig organs to persuade the FDA to allow a clinical trial — possibly with an organ such as a kidney that isn’t immediately fatal if it fails.
Twice last fall, surgeons at New York University got permission from the families of deceased individuals to temporarily attach a gene-edited pig kidney to blood vessels outside the body and watch them work before ending life support. And surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham went a step further, transplanting a pair of gene-edited pig kidneys into a brain-dead man in a step-by-step rehearsal for an operation they hope to try in living patients possibly later this year.
Pigs have long been used in human medicine, including pig skin grafts and implantation of pig heart valves. But transplanting entire organs is much more complex than using highly processed tissue. The gene-edited pigs used in these experiments were provided by Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics, one of several biotech companies in the running to develop suitable pig organs for potential human transplant.
AP
Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military operations “in a moment” if Kyiv meets a list of conditions, the Kremlin spokesman said on Monday.
Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.
It was the most explicit Russian statement so far of the terms it wants to impose on Ukraine to halt what it calls its “special military operation”, now in its 12th day.
Peskov told Reuters in a telephone interview that Ukraine was aware of the conditions. “And they were told that all this can be stopped in a moment.”
There was no immediate reaction from the Ukrainian side.
Russia has attacked Ukraine from the north, east and south, pounding cities including Kyiv, Kharkiv and the port of Mariupol. The invasion launched on Feb. 24, has caused the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two, provoked outrage across the world, and led to heavy sanctions on Moscow.
But the Kremlin spokesman insisted Russia was not seeking to make any further territorial claims on Ukraine and said it was “not true” that it was demanding Kyiv be handed over.
“We really are finishing the demilitarisation of Ukraine. We will finish it. But the main thing is that Ukraine ceases its military action. They should stop their military action and then no one will shoot,” he said.
On the issue of neutrality, Peskov said: “They should make amendments to the constitution according to which Ukraine would reject any aims to enter any bloc.”
He added: “We have also spoken about how they should recognise that Crimea is Russian territory and that they need to recognise that Donetsk and Lugansk are independent states. And that’s it. It will stop in a moment.”
NEW TALKS
The outlining of Russia’s demands came as delegations from Russia and Ukraine prepared to meet on Monday for a third round of talks aimed at ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.
It began soon after Putin recognised two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian government forces since 2014, as independent - an action denounced as illegal by the West.
“This is not us seizing Lugansk and Donetsk from Ukraine. Donetsk and Lugansk don’t want to be part of Ukraine. But it doesn’t mean they should be destroyed as a result,” Peskov said.
“For the rest. Ukraine is an independent state that will live as it wants, but under conditions of neutrality.”
He said all the demands have been formulated and handed over during the first two rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, which took place last week.
“We hope that all this will go OK and they will react in a suitable way,” Peskov said.
Russia had been forced into taking decisive actions to force the demilitarisation of Ukraine, he said, rather than just recognising the independence of the breakaway regions.
This was in order to protect the 3 million Russian-speaking population in these republics, who he said were being threatened by 100,000 Ukrainian troops.
“We couldn’t just recognise them. What were we going to do with the 100,000 army that was standing at the border of Donetsk and Lugansk that could attack at any moment. They were being brought U.S. and British weapons all the time,” he said.
In the run-up to the Russian invasion, Ukraine repeatedly and emphatically denied Moscow’s assertions that it was about to mount an offensive to take back the separatist regions by force.
Peskov said the situation in Ukraine had posed a much greater threat to Russia’s security than it had in 2014, when Russia had also amassed 150,000 troops at its border with Ukraine, prompting fears of a Russian invasion, but had limited its action to the annexation of Crimea.
“Since then the situation has worsened for us. In 2014, they began supplying weapons to Ukraine and preparing the army for NATO, bringing it in line with NATO standards,” he said.
“In the end what tipped the balance was the lives of these 3 million people in Donbass. We understood they would be attacked.”
Peskov said Russia had also had to act in the face of the threat it perceived from NATO, saying it was “only a matter of time” before the alliance placed missiles in Ukraine as it had in Poland and Romania.
“We just understood we could not put up with this any more. We had to act,” he said.
Reuters
U.S. efforts to catch up with China and Russia in developing hypersonic weapons may be set back after Lockheed Martin Corp.’s air-launched missile suffered three consecutive test failures that left it on a tight schedule.
That’s put in doubt the Pentagon’s goal to declare it America’s first combat-ready hypersonic weapon and approve initial production by Sept. 30.
China and Russia have conducted test launches and fielded their versions of the new weapons, which can travel five times the speed of sound and maneuver in flight like a cruise missile, making them harder to detect and shoot down.
The U.S. weapon faces several hurdles in a development phase now expected to cost at least $1.4 billion before it can be found to have “early operation capability.” The Air Force hasn’t yet released an estimate of total acquisition costs or said how many of the weapons it wants.
The latest hurdle: successfully conducting a fourth and fifth test of its booster motor by June 30. Their timing will be contingent on the results of a failure review board for the third test that was to be complete by the end of last month, according to the Air Force program office.
If successful, those tests would be followed by the program’s key flight test of a fully operational missile between July and September. Added to that is completion of a production readiness review to assess Lockheed’s capability to manufacture and integrate hardware for delivery.
The hypersonic Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon is a fast-track “rapid prototype” program that’s intended to cut months, if not years, off its development and deployment in the face of rapid progress by adversaries. The weapon is intended to be dropped from a B-52H bomber and accelerated by its booster motor before a solid glide body separates and flies at hypersonic speeds to its target.
Russia said last month that it test-fired a hypersonic missile, sending a message to the U.S. and NATO allies in advance of its invasion of Ukraine. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has asserted that hypersonic weapons will make up the core of Russia’s non-nuclear deterrence capability in the future. The U.S. says Russia has deployed its Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle and its Tsirkon hypersonic anti-ship and land-attack missile.
China is investing heavily in hypersonic weapons as well, putting one in orbit in July that flew 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) in more than 100 minutes of flight, according to the top U.S. nuclear commander.
Russia and China are able to press ahead on new weapons without the oversight by lawmakers and the public that can slow testing and deployment under the Pentagon’s acquisition system.
‘Aggressive Schedule’
Heidi Shyu, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for research and engineering, said through a spokesperson that she’s “supportive of the Air Force’s aggressive efforts to accelerate development,” but “the Sept. 30 operational capability date is a very aggressive schedule.”
The Air Force is also hedging its bets on the declaration date. Its program office said in a statement it “continues to aggressively pursue” an early operational capability “while maintaining high standards of technical rigor.” In spite of the test failures to date, “it is still possible to provide” that capability “in late calendar year 2022 provided future flight testing concludes as per the current plan.” The flight test program “has successfully demonstrated a number of first-time events,” it said.
A production decision on the first 12 missiles that was previously planned for January is on hold pending the results of the December failure review, the two additional booster motor tests and the full-missile flight. The program office said it “will not award a production contract without a Production Readiness Review and a successful All Up Round Test Flight.”
“To date, the team has not found any systemic quality issues at Lockheed or its subcontractors” that caused the test failures, the program office said.
Limited Exercises
The three failures so far have occurred during limited exercises focused on demonstrating the performance of the missile’s booster motor after separating from the bomber but without the hardened glide-body warhead of an operational missile.
The remaining schedule of increasing complexity to meet a Sept. 30 declaration “leaves little to no room for test delays or additional flight failures, and so it will likely be challenging,” said Kelley Sayler, an analyst in advanced technology such as hypersonics.
Cristina Vite, a spokesman for Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed, said in an email that “the joint government and Lockheed Martin team closely reviews every test to ensure quality measures remain in place.” She said that with each test the missile “continues to gain significant technical maturity while accomplishing many first-time milestones.”
Lockheed was awarded an initial $480 million development contract in April 2018 that was broadened in December 2019 to $986 million.
Bloomberg
NATO will defend all its allies and territory against a Russian attack, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday, as he arrived for a meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers in Brussels.
"Ours is a defensive alliance. We seek no conflict. But if conflict comes to us we are ready for it and we will defend every inch of NATO territory," he told reporters, while condemning what he called Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine.
"And overnight, we've also seen reports about the attack against a nuclear power plant. This just demonstrates the recklessness of this war and the importance of ending it and the importance of Russia withdrawing all its troops and engaging in good faith in diplomatic efforts."
Reuters
Russia’s war on Ukraine is in its ninth day. U.N. and Ukrainian officials say no radiation was released from a Russian attack at Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant. One building caught fire and firefighters have extinguished the blaze.
Russian forces continued to press a campaign that has brought global condemnation. People across Ukraine have taken up arms and sought shelter. More than 1.2 million people have fled to neighboring countries, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.
NATO is refusing to police a no-fly zone over Ukraine. The 30-nation military organization believes such a move could provoke widespread war in Europe with Russia.
Here’s a look at key things to know about the conflict:
NUCLEAR SAFETY CONCERNS
Russian troops seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar in an attack that evoked memories of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, at Ukraine’s Chernobyl.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said no radiation spikes were detected. The chief of the U.N. agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said a Russian “projectile” hit a training center, not any of the six reactors.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal appealed to the IAEA and the EU to send representatives to all five Ukrainian nuclear power plants. “This is a question of the security of the whole world,” he said in a nighttime video address.
The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine issued an unexpectedly harsh statement calling Russia’s attack on the nuclear plant a war crime.
Frequent shelling could be heard Friday from the center of the capital, Kyiv.
Heavy fighting continued on the outskirts of Mariupol, a strategic port, knocking out the city’s electricity, heat and water systems, and most phone service. Food deliveries were also cut.
In stories and videos posted online, Russian state outlets are falsely claiming that Zelenskyy fled Kyiv. Photos and videos show the Ukrainian president leading his country’s defense.
Russian forces have captured the southern city of Kherson, a vital Black Sea port of 280,000 — the first major city to fall. Russian armored vehicles were seen in the otherwise empty streets of Kherson, in videos shared with the AP by a resident.
WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING ON THE GROUND?
Battles involving airstrikes and artillery continued Friday northwest of Kyiv, and in the northeast, with the cities of Kharkiv and Okhtyrka coming under heavy strikes, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich said.
Ukrainian defense forces were holding on to the northern city of Chernihiv, and have prevented Russian efforts to take the important southern city of Mykolaiv, he said.
Ukrainian artillery have been defending Odesa from repeated attempts by Russian ships to fire on the Black Sea port city, he said, insisting there’s no immediate threat to the city.
Some Ukrainian drone enthusiasts are risking their lives by forming a volunteer drone force to help their country repel the Russian invasion. Civilians are using the aerial cameras to track Russian convoys and relay the images and GPS coordinates to Ukrainian troops.
WHERE ARE REFUGEES GOING?
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ data portal showed that the vast majority of those who have left Ukraine since the invasion began — about 650,000 — went to neighboring Poland. Roughly 145,000 fled to Hungary. An additional 103,000 were in Moldova and more than 90,000 in Slovakia.
More than 100 Jewish refugee children who were evacuated from a foster care home in Ukraine and made their way across Europe by bus arrived in Berlin on Friday. The 105 children — the youngest only 5 weeks old — had left Odesa 52 hours earlier. The children received financial assistance from Jewish aid groups, and diplomatic support from Israel, Germany and other European states.
Brazil — which has Latin America’s biggest population of Ukrainians and their descendants — said it will issue temporary humanitarian visas and residency permits for Ukrainian nationals and others affected by the war.
In Hungary, a pastor in a village on the border with Ukraine offered up the only room in his church to a family of 27 women and children who were fleeing the invasion.
HOW MANY CASUALTIES?
Russia has acknowledged that nearly 500 Russian troops have been killed and around 1,600 wounded.
Ukraine has not released casualty figures for its armed forces.
The U.N. human rights office says at least 331 civilians have been killed and 675 wounded in Ukraine since the start of the invasion. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service has said more than 2,000 civilians have died, though it’s impossible to verify the claim.
BIDEN MEETS WITH FINNISH PRESIDENT NIINISTO
U.S. President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is “an attack on the security of Europe.”
Biden made the comment while meeting on Friday with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto in the White House. Biden said in a tweet that the two leaders called Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson during their meeting.
Biden and Niinisto committed to start a process that would strengthen U.S.-Finnish security cooperation, the White House said.
Finland, as well as neighbor Sweden, for years has resisted joining NATO, with Nordic European Union members seeking to remain neutral between Russia and the West. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine is changing the dynamic.
Biden said at the start of his meeting with Niinisto: “We agree it’s not only an attack on Ukraine, it’s an attack on the security of Europe.”
The Finnish leader said his nation will do its best to help Ukraine.
SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA
The wave of global sanctions on Russia could have devastating consequences for energy and grain importers. Russia is a leading exporter of grains and a major supplier of crude oil, metals, wood and plastics.
More companies are suspending operations in Russia, including Apple, Mercedes-Benz, BP, Volkswagen, clothing retailer H&M and furnishings store IKEA.
Spain’s Teatro Real, one of Europe’s major opera houses, said it is canceling a set of upcoming performances by Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet.
RUSSIA’S MEDIA CRACKDOWN
Putin on Friday signed a bill into law that threatens up to 15 years in prison for what Russia deems to be “fake” reports about the war.
Also, the state communications watchdog blocked Facebook, Twitter and five foreign media organizations based abroad that publish news in Russian. Those organizations — the BBC, the U.S. government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Latvia-based website Meduza — are among the most influential and often critical foreign media publishing in Russian.
AP
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President Vladimir Putin urged Russia's neighbours on Friday not to escalate tensions, eight days after Moscow sent its forces into Ukraine.
"There are no bad intentions towards our neighbours. And I would also advise them not to escalate the situation, not to introduce any restrictions. We fulfil all our obligations and will continue to fulfil them," Putin said in televised remarks.
"We do not see any need here to aggravate or worsen our relations. And all our actions, if they arise, they always arise exclusively in response to some unfriendly actions, actions against the Russian Federation."
Putin was shown on TV taking part online, from his residence outside Moscow, in a flag-raising ceremony for a ferry in northern Russia.
Reuters
UN human rights chief warned humanity is at risk amid increasing nuclear threat.
Michelle Bachelet slammed Russia's attack on Ukraine in a speech in Geneva.
Russia's Foreign Minister previously accused Western politicians of fixating on nuclear war, after Putin put the world's largest nuclear arsenal on high alert
The UN human rights chief slammed Russia's attack on Ukraine on Thursday and cautioned that heightened nuclear threat levels showed all of humanity was at risk from Putin’s invasion.
Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Michelle Bachelet warned that Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched a week ago, 'is generating massive impact on the human rights of millions of people across Ukraine.'
'Elevated threat levels for nuclear weapons underline the gravity of the risks to all of humanity,' she added.
Her comments, during an urgent council debate on the Ukraine conflict, came after Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday ordered Russia's nuclear forces be put on high alert.
Earlier on Thursday, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Western politicians of fixating on nuclear war.
'It is clear that World War Three can only be nuclear,' Lavrov said in an online interview with Russian and foreign media.
'I would like to point out that it's in the heads of Western politicians that the idea of a nuclear war is spinning constantly, and not in the heads of Russians,' he said.
Moscow has the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and a huge cache of ballistic missiles which form the backbone of the country's deterrence forces.
Bachelet's speech came as UN figures showed the devastating week-old war had already forced more than one million people to flee Ukraine into neighboring nations, with countless others displaced inside the war-ravaged country.
Bachelet said her office had recorded 227 civilian deaths, including at least 15 children, but stressed that the real numbers were likely far higher.
Daily Mail
Russian forces pressed their attack on a crucial energy-producing Ukrainian city by shelling Europe’s largest nuclear plant early Friday, sparking a fire and raising fears that radiation could leak from the damaged power station.
The assault on the eastern city of Enerhodar and its Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant came as the invasion entered its second week with Russian forces gaining ground in their bid to cut off the country from the sea. Elsewhere, another round of talks between the two sides yielded a tentative agreement to set up safe corridors inside Ukraine to evacuate citizens and deliver humanitarian aid.
Nuclear plant spokesman Andriy Tuz told Ukrainian television that shells were falling directly on the facility and had set fire to one of its six reactors. That reactor is under renovation and not operating, but there is nuclear fuel inside, he said.
Firefighters cannot get near the flames because they are being shot at, he said, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted a plea to the Russians to stop the assault and allow fire teams inside.
“We demand that they stop the heavy weapons fire,” Tuz said in a video statement. “There is a real threat of nuclear danger in the biggest atomic energy station in Europe.”
The attack renewed fears that the invasion could result in damage to one of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors and trigger another emergency like the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the world’s worst nuclear disaster, which happened about 110 kilometers (65 miles) north of the capital.
The American Nuclear Society condemned the attack but said the latest radiation levels remained within natural background levels.
“The real threat to Ukrainian lives continues to be the violent invasion and bombing of their country,” the group said in a statement from President Steven Nesbit and Executive Director and CEO Craig Piercy.
The plant’s reactor is a different type than the one used at Chernobyl, and there should be little risk if the containment vessel is not damaged and outside power can be restored, said Jon B. Wolfsthal, a former senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council and former special adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden.
“Everyone needs to take a step back and not jump to conclusions,” Wolfsthal, now a senior adviser at Global Zero, said on Twitter.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was in contact with authorities in Ukraine. The agency’s director general, Mariano Grossi, urged military forces to refrain from violence near the plant.
The mayor of Enerhodar said earlier that Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops on the city’s outskirts. Video showed flames and black smoke rising above the city of more than 50,000, with people streaming past wrecked cars, just a day after the U.N. atomic watchdog agency expressed grave concern that the fighting could cause accidental damage to Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors.
The Ukrainian state atomic energy company reported that a Russian military column was heading toward the nuclear plant. Loud shots and rocket fire were heard late Thursday.
“Many young men in athletic clothes and armed with Kalashnikovs have come into the city. They are breaking down doors and trying to get into the apartments of local residents,” the statement from Energoatom said.
Later, a live streamed security camera linked from the homepage of the Zaporizhzhia plant showed what appeared to be armored vehicles rolling into the facility’s parking lot and shining spotlights on the building where the camera was mounted.
There were then what appeared to be bright muzzle flashes from vehicles, followed by nearly simultaneous explosions in the surrounding buildings. Smoke then rose into the frame and drifted away.
While the huge Russian armored column threatening Kyiv appeared bogged down outside the capital, Vladimir Putin’s forces have brought their superior firepower to bear over the past few days, launching hundreds of missiles and artillery attacks on cities and other sites around the country and making significant gains in the south.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called on the West to close the skies over the country’s nuclear plants as fighting intensified. “It is a question of the security of the whole world!” he said in a statement.
The U.S. and NATO allies have ruled out creating a no-fly zone since the move would pit Russian and Western military forces against each other.
The Russians announced the capture of the southern city of Kherson, a vital Black Sea port of 280,000, and local Ukrainian officials confirmed the takeover of the government headquarters there, making it the first major city to fall since the invasion began a week ago.
Heavy fighting continued on the outskirts of another strategic port, Mariupol, on the Azov Sea. The battles have knocked out the city’s electricity, heat and water systems, as well as most phone service, officials said. Food deliveries to the city were also cut.
Associated Press video from the port city shows the assault lighting up the darkening sky above largely deserted streets and medical teams treating civilians, including one inside a clinic who appeared to be a child. Doctors were unable to save the person.
Severing Ukraine’s access to the Black and Azov seas would deal a crippling blow to its economy and allow Russia to build a land corridor to Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014.
Overall, the outnumbered, outgunned Ukrainians have put up stiff resistance, staving off the swift victory that Russia appeared to have expected. But a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia’s seizure of Crimea gave it a logistical advantage in that part of the country, with shorter supply lines that smoothed the offensive there.
Ukrainian leaders called on the people to defend their homeland by cutting down trees, erecting barricades in the cities and attacking enemy columns from the rear. In recent days, authorities have issued weapons to civilians and taught them how to make Molotov cocktails.
“Total resistance. ... This is our Ukrainian trump card, and this is what we can do best in the world,” Oleksiy Arestovich, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a video message, recalling guerrilla actions in Nazi-occupied Ukraine during World War II.
The second round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations was held in neighboring Belarus. But the two sides appeared far apart going into the meeting, and Putin warned Ukraine that it must quickly accept the Kremlin’s demand for its “demilitarization” and declare itself neutral, renouncing its bid to join NATO.
Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron he was determined to press on with his attack “until the end,” according to Macron’s office.
The two sides said that they tentatively agreed to allow cease-fires in areas designated safe corridors, and that they would seek to work out the necessary details quickly. A Zelenskyy adviser also said a third round of talks will be held early next week.
Despite a profusion of evidence of civilian casualties and destruction of property by the Russian military, Putin decried what he called an “anti-Russian disinformation campaign” and insisted that Moscow uses “only precision weapons to exclusively destroy military infrastructure.”
Putin claimed that the Russian military had already offered safe corridors for civilians to flee, but he asserted without evidence that Ukrainian “neo-Nazis” were preventing people from leaving and were using them as human shields.
He also hailed Russian soldiers as heroes in a video call with members of Russia’s Security Council, and ordered additional payments to families of men killed or wounded.
A top Russian officer, Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky, commander of an airborne division, was killed in the fighting earlier this week, an officers organization in Russia reported.
The Pentagon set up a direct communication link to Russia’s Ministry of Defense earlier this week to avoid the possibility of a miscalculation sparking conflict between Moscow and Washington, according to a U.S. defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the link had not been announced.
The fighting has sent more than 1 million people fleeing Ukraine, according to the U.N., which fears those refugee numbers could skyrocket.
The immense Russian column of hundreds of tanks and other vehicles still appeared to be stalled roughly 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Kyiv and had made no real progress in days, amid fuel and food shortages, according to U.S. authorities.
AP
The prices of many crudes, yesterday, surged toward $120 per barrel on the decisions of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC.
This came as many buyers decided to shun Russian crudes, amid concerns about supply disruptions.
Specifically, the prices of Bonny Light, Brent, WTI, rose to $107, $111 and $109 per barrel, from $98, $104 and $108 per barrel respectively, yesterday.
In a statement, OPEC said at the end of its 26th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting, that: “Following the conclusion of the 26th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting, held via videoconference on March 2, 2022, and based on internal consultation held exclusively by the OPEC and participating non-OPEC oil-producing countries in the Declaration of Cooperation of (DoC), it was noted that current oil market fundamentals and the consensus on its outlook pointed to a well-balanced market, and that current volatility is not caused by changes in market fundamentals but by current geopolitical developments.
“The OPEC and participating non-OPEC oil-producing countries decided to reaffirm the decision of the 10th Ministerial Meeting on April 10, 2020, and further endorsed in subsequent meetings including the 19th Ministerial Meeting on July 18, 2021.
“Reconfirm the production adjustment plan and the monthly production adjustment mechanism approved at the 19th Ministerial Meeting and the decision to adjust upward the monthly overall production by 0.4 mb/d for the month of April 2022, as per the attached schedule.
“Reiterate the critical importance of adhering to full conformity and to the compensation mechanism taking advantage of the extension of the compensation period until the end of June 2022. Compensation plans should be submitted in accordance with the statement of the 15th Ministerial Meeting.
“Hold the 27th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting on March 31, 2022.”
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, had, said the increase in prices of crude oil is not in the best interest of Nigeria.
Vanguard