From the Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau:
The Russia-Ukraine War
Ukrainian officials said their armed forces are pressing forwardagainst Russian military units around Kyiv, seeking to exploit Moscow’s efforts to regroup after weeks of heavy losses, James Marson and Matthew Luxmoore report. (▶️Video)
Ukrainian forces are engaged in heavy fighting in the towns of Bucha and Hostomel northwest of Kyiv, officials said. In the Chernihiv region north of the capital, Ukrainian forces retook a village and were pushing for further gains, officials said, while warning that it was too early to say Russian forces were withdrawing.
- The White House on Wednesday said it planned to declassify information that Mr. Putin was being misinformed by advisers.
- Live updates: Follow WSJ’s full coverage of the war.
Western officials are balking at Ukraine’s proposal for a NATO-style mutual-defense pledge that could draw their military forces into a war with Russia, even as they expressed some receptiveness to the idea of international security guarantees as part of a deal to end hostilities, Jared Malsin, Lindsay Wise and Bojan Pancevski report.
Russian and Ukrainian drones that crashed in bordering European countries, or entered their airspace, have prompted an investigation into how to close a hole in NATO’s military air defenses, Bojan Pancevski reports.
European countries are weighing new steps to raise pressure on Russia’s economy including targeting more banks and other family members of oligarchs, say diplomats and officials familiar with discussions, reports Laurence Norman.
- Among the measures under discussion is how to deploy the bloc’s anti-money-laundering blacklist against countries found to be helping circumvent Western sanctions. Those discussions include whether to place Russia on the EU blacklist.
The surge in global energy prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine doesn’t seem like any sort of blessing, writes Greg Ip, there may be a silver lining for President Biden.
Higher prices could reduce global fossil-fuel consumption and encourage the shift to zero-emission energy, while sanctions on Russia could at the same time pave the way for U.S. oil-and-gas producers to expand market share.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cause their economies to contract this year by about 10% and 20%, respectively, the region’s leading development bank said Thursday in one of the most in-depth economic assessments to date of the war’s impact on the two countries, Paul Hannon reports.
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