Axios Late Night Update on Russia-Ukraine

From axios.com:

The latest:

• Biden authorizes additional $150 million in military assistance to Ukraine
• Ukrainian science students persist in wartime
• Zelensky asks Germany’s Scholz to visit Kyiv on Russia’s May 9 holiday
• Ukraine’s ambassador sets high bar for “victory”
• UN chief: Russia’s invasion is “limitless in its potential for global harm”

• The world isn’t lining up behind the West against Russia
• EU official warns against “inappropriate communication” on intel-sharing with Ukraine
• George W. Bush meets virtually with Zelensky
• Pentagon denies U.S. is providing Ukraine intel to kill Russian generals
• Putin apologized for “Hitler” claim, Israel says
• Ukraine’s prosecutor general says Russia has committed nearly 10,000 war crimes
• Ukraine races to evacuate Mariupol steel plant’s remaining civilians

How we got here:

• The crisis in eastern Ukraine escalated drastically on Feb. 21 when Putin recognized two pro-Russian separatist “republics” and sent Russian “peacekeepers” to the territories.
• Ukraine has been battling Russian-backed separatists in the east since 2014, when Russia also occupied and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. U.S. officials began warning in November that Putin could be planning another incursion, possibly to topple the pro-Western government in Kyiv.
• The U.S. and its European allies had met with Russian officials in a variety of settings to try to build a diplomatic off-ramp, while also warning that an invasion could be imminent.
• Russia had issued a series of demands, including a legal guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO. At the same time, Putin amassed more than 150,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders and conducted unprecedented military drills — preparing the option to take military action if Russia didn’t secure the concessions it was seeking.