Kyiv/ Washinton, Moscow: The main developments in the Ukraine theatre of war:
- The US government has dismissed as “untenable” a suggestion by Poland that it could make 29 of its Soviet-era MIG fighter jets available to the Americans to help defend Ukraine.
- But the US will be sending two Patriot anti-missile batteries stationed in Europe to Poland to bolster its defences against attack.
- Russian forces say they will stop firing starting 10 am Moscow time on Wednesday and are ready to provide human corridors so civilians can evacuate Kyiv and four other cities.
- Russia’s military is solving some of its logistical problems and could launch an attack on Kyiv within days, according to experts.
- Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been described as a hero by the British press after he invoked the fight against Nazism in an impassioned video address to MPs to do more to help protect his country.
- Ukraine accused Russia of breaking a ceasefire agreement, by shelling a route intended to allow civilians to escape the besieged city of Mariupol. Residents of the port city are living without heat, water, sanitary systems or phones.
- The US is banning imports of Russian oil “to inflict further pain on Vladimir Putin”, Joe Biden has said. The EU has not joined the ban, but the British government promised to phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year.
- Russia’s war in Ukraine is being bolstered by $285m in daily oil payments from European countries, a thinktank has found.
- Venezuela has released at least two Americans from jail in an apparent goodwill gesture toward the Biden administration following a visit to Caracas by a high-level US delegation.
- Chinese president Xi Jinping called for “maximum restraint” in Ukraine overnight and said China is “pained to see the flames of war reignited in Europe” in his strongest statement to date on the conflict.