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BBC/London: President Biden is asking Congress for $33bn (£27bn) in military, economic and humanitarian assistance to support Ukraine – although he insisted that the US was not “attacking Russia”. Mr Biden said it was “critical” for US lawmakers to approve the deal, which he said would help Ukraine defend itself. The proposal includes more than $20bn in military aid, $8.5bn in economic aid and $3bn in humanitarian aid. “It’s not cheap,” Mr Biden said on Thursday. “But caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen.” Although the US has already announced help for Ukraine, the proposals are a significant ramping up of aid.

President Biden said US military support to Ukraine has so far amounted to 10 anti-tank weapons for every tank that Russia has deployed to Ukraine. But despite his strong rhetoric, he said the US was not attacking Russia. “We are helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression,” he insisted. On Thursday, a spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Western military support for Ukraine threatens “the security of the continent”.

President Biden is asking Congress to authorise an enormous sum of money for Ukraine – more than twice as much as the US has already spent on providing military equipment and humanitarian aid. The US president wants to show he is undeterred by vague threats about the possible use of nuclear weapons, and a warning from Vladimir Putin that there could be retaliatory strikes against countries that intervene in Ukraine. He shrugged off those comments – saying they show the desperation Russia is feeling about their abject failure to do what they set out to do. Explaining to Americans why this money is needed – at a time when many are suffering from rising living costs – he said it was not cheap, but doing nothing was more costly. An additional plan to allow US authorities to not just freeze but liquidate the assets of Russian oligarchs is bold – and it has raised concerns among civil liberties groups in America. But it is likely to gain bipartisan support in Congress. Yet it will not begin to cover cost of the additional sums of money the White House wants to spend supporting Ukraine’s war efforts.

In his speech on Thursday, Mr Biden also addressed concerns over a nuclear confrontation. On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned of a “serious” risk of nuclear war over Ukraine which “can’t be underestimated”. “No one should be making idle comments about the use of nuclear weapons,” Mr Biden said. Additionally, Mr Biden took aim at what he termed Russian “gas blackmail” to threaten European energy supplies. This week, Russia cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria. “We will not let Russia intimidate or blackmail their way out of these sanctions,” he said. “We will not allow them to use their oil and gas to avoid consequences for their aggression.” The announcement of the new Ukraine package comes at a difficult time for the US economy. Data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday shows that the US economy shrank in the first quarter of 2022, with gross domestic product declining 1.4% between January and March. Read more at BBC

London: The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has reached in the Ukrainian capital to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The UN head is also set to meet Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba at Kyiv in the warn-torn Ukraine, and visit an undisclosed location outside the capital.

Earlier in the week, Guterres met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, where the two were said to have discussed the possible evacuation of the besieged Azovstal steel complex in the city of Mariupol.

In the meantime, a series of explosions were reported late Wednesday near a television tower in the southern Russian city of Kherson. Both Ukrainian and Russian news organisations reported that the series of explosions temporarily knocked Russian channels off the air.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said the broadcasts had resumed. It also said the Russian channels had begun broadcasting from Kherson last week.

From Agencies

Agencies — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called for a cease-fire in Ukraine during a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as the top Russian diplomat dismissed Kyiv’s proposal to hold peace talks in Mariupol.

Guterres is visiting Moscow and is then scheduled to visit the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, later this week.

“We are extremely interested in finding ways in order to create the conditions for effective dialogue, create the conditions for a cease-fire as soon as possible, create the conditions for a peaceful solution,” Guterres said at a meeting with Lavrov.

Guterres said he wanted to reduce the impact of fighting in Ukraine on food security in other parts of the world. Lavrov said they would discuss “the situation around Ukraine that acts as a catalyst for a great number of problems which had piled up over recent decades in the Euro-Atlantic region.”

Guterres also told the Russian foreign minister that he is ready to fully mobilize the organization’s resources to save lives and evacuate people from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

“Thousands of civilians are in dire need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance, and many have evacuated,” Guterres told a news conference with Lavrov.

“The U.N. is ready to fully mobilise its human and logistical resources to help save lives in Mariupol”, he said, proposing coordinated work with the Red Cross to allow those holed up inside the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol to leave.

Speaking about reports of possible war crimes in Ukraine, Guterres said he was concerned, and that they required an independent investigation.

He was later due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Lavrov, for his part, said Russia was committed to a diplomatic solution via talks on Ukraine. Dismissing Kyiv’s proposal to hold peace talks in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Lavrov said it was too early to talk about who would mediate any negotiations.

Moscow is ready to cooperate with the United Nations to help civilians in Ukraine, where Russia has been conducting a military operation for over two months, Lavrov said.

“Our goals are primarily to protect the civilian population and here we are ready to cooperate with our colleagues from the U.N. to alleviate the plight of the civilian population,” Lavrov added.

Ukraine’ Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said while a diplomatic breakthrough was unlikely, there was hope Guterres could help the humanitarian situation, esepecially around Mariupol, where Ukraine says hundreds of civilians are trapped with the city’s last defenders inside a blockaded steel works.

“I don’t think (the) Secretary General will be able to end the war. But there is one crucially important path that he can implement: It’s to arrange a green corridor for defenders and civilians blocked by Russia in Mariupol.”

Kyiv and its allies played down Lavrov’s remarks about nuclear war. Russia had lost its “last hope to scare the world off supporting Ukraine,” Kuleba tweeted after Lavrov’s interview. “This only means Moscow senses defeat.”

U.N. projects 8.3M refugees

The U.N. refugee agency is launching a new appeal for funds for the crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine that projects up to 8.3 million people will have to flee the country by year-end.

The projection was announced Tuesday as part of a new $1.85 billion regional response plan from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) aimed at supporting refugees from Ukraine after Russia’s war began on Feb. 24. It far outstrips the agency’s previous refugee estimates, which now stand at just over 5.2 million.

The exodus has exceeded the worst-case predictions of the Geneva-based agency, which it has called the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

The response plan would help refugees who have fled to neighboring countries including Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, but also other countries in the region, including Belarus, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic.

The U.N. estimates that nearly 8 million people are displaced within Ukraine, and another 13 million people are believed to be trapped in war-affected areas of Ukraine. The country had a pre-war population of about 44 million.