Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron said in a joint statement after Oval Office talks on Thursday that they were determined to hold Russia “accountable for the widely documented atrocities and war crimes committed by its regular armed forces in Ukraine.” forces and its representative”.
Biden told reporters that he was willing to talk with the Russian president “if he’s really interested in making a decision that he’s looking for a way to end the war,” adding that Putin “has not yet Haven’t done that”.
Macron said he would continue talking to Putin “to try to stop the escalation and get some very concrete results” such as the safety of nuclear plants.
The International Atomic Energy Agency hopes to reach an agreement with Russia and Ukraine to create a safety zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by the end of the year, Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, told La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper. Interview.
Repeated shelling around the Russian-held plant has raised concerns about the possibility of a serious accident just 500 km (300 miles) from the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
There are no ongoing political talks to end the war, which Russia launched on February 24 as a “special military operation” it claimed was aimed at disarming its neighbor and killing leaders who Those who call it dangerous nationalists have to be uprooted.
Ukraine and the West call it an imperialist land grab that has killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers on both sides.
Ukraine’s armed forces have lost somewhere between 10,000 and 13,000 soldiers so far, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolić told a Ukrainian television network on Thursday.
“We will never urge the Ukrainian people to make a compromise that is not acceptable to them, because they are very brave,” Macron said in Washington.
attacks
Russia has recently intensified a campaign to cut off electricity, water and heat supplies to Ukrainian cities. Ukraine and the West say the tactic intentionally intended to harm civilians, a war crime, something Moscow denies.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told residents on Thursday to stock up on water, food and warm clothing in case there was a complete blackout.
IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva told a conference on Thursday that attacks on infrastructure were likely to increase the cost of maintaining Ukraine’s economy by up to $1 billion a month next year, and called for the country to “front-load” aid. would be required.
In the early hours of Friday, Russian forces bombed a building in the Ukrainian-occupied city of Zaporizhia, setting it on fire, city official Anatoly Krutyev said.
Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement overnight that Russian forces, which abandoned the strategically important southern city of Kherson in November, are trying to set up defensive positions and are shelling several towns in the north.
The Battlefield report could not be independently verified.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking during an annual news conference in Moscow, said that NATO and the United States were participating directly in the conflict by sending lethal weapons to Ukraine “to kill the Russians”.