Ukraine faced a deadly Russian attack on the southern port city of Odesa on Thursday, which killed 12 people, five of them children. The strikes took place while Zelenskyy and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were meeting there. EU leaders called the attack “vile” and “reckless.”
On the same day, Sweden officially joined the NATO alliance, a triumph for the transatlantic organization in its push against Russia two years after the Nordic country first applied to join, ending its historic position of nonalignment.
Elsewhere, Lithuanian intelligence agencies warned that Russia has sufficient resources to keep fighting “at a similar intensity,” at least in the near term. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine entered its third year in late February.
The board of governors of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, approved a draft resolution by Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy demanding the urgent return of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to the country.
The news was detailed in a statement on the Ukrainian Energy Ministry’s website.
“The Russian Federation openly demonstrates hostility towards the Agency and deliberately undermines confidence in the non-proliferation system,” the Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko said in the statement. “By supporting the resolution developed by Ukraine today, the countries will send a clear signal to Russia to stop its illegal activities. The vote for this resolution demonstrates the commitment of the IAEA and the need to return safety to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.”
The plant, in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, was taken over by Russian forces in March of 2022, shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion. In October of that year, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the region as annexed by Russia in a move widely seen as illegal under international law.
“The future development of atomic energy in the world can be stopped even by any minor accident at the Zaporizhzhia NPP,” Galushchenko warned.
Zelenskyy to visit Turkey for talks with Erdogan
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to travel to Turkey for talks with his Turkish counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Reuters reported.
The news outlet cited a Turkish government source saying that Turkey will emphasize its support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and “it is planned to convey that Turkey is continuing its efforts to end the war as soon as possible on the basis of negotiations.”
Turkey led the brokering of a grain deal between Russia and Ukraine in the first 18 months of the war. It enabled Ukrainian grain to reach export markets, though the deal was suspended by Russia in July of 2023. Erdogan has managed to maintain positive relations with both Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, while also seeing Turkey’s trade with Russia boom.
President Joe Biden is “determined” not to deploy U.S. troops to Ukraine, he said in his State of the Union speech on Thursday evening.
“They are not asking for American soldiers. In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine. And I am determined to keep it that way,” Biden said.
He also maintained that Kyiv could prevail against Moscow if the U.S. stands with Ukraine “and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself.”
The president again called on Congress to support a new aid package to Ukraine.
“If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not,” he said.
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