US Commits to Arms Shipment as Russia Bombs Cities

The Biden administration committed Saturday to shipping another $200 million in weapons and equipment to Ukraine. Just before the announcement, Russia warned that it would consider any weapons on their way to Ukraine to be "legitimate targets" for attack, the New York Times reports. Javelin antitank missiles and Stinger antiaircraft missiles will be included in the shipment, lifting the total for US weapons sent to Ukraine over the past year to $1.2 billion. Other developments included:

• The attack on cites: The southern city of Mariupol is being bombed "24 hours a day," President Volodymyr Zelensky said, per the AP. Ukrainian officials said Russian soldiers kidnapped the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fyodorov, on Friday evening. Despite the fact that Russian soldiers were there, hundreds went into the streets Saturday to demand his release, shouting, "Return the mayor!" until the troops shut the protest down. Zelensky said the kidnapping demonstrates how false the Russian propaganda is; the mayor is an ethnic Russian who might have been expected to cooperate. "For years they have been lying to themselves that people in Ukraine were supposedly waiting for Russia to come," Zelensky said. "They did not find collaborators who would hand over the city and the power to the invaders."
• The battle for Kyiv: The capital likewise was being pounded, and UK intelligence showed most of Russian forces are about 15 miles from Kyiv's center, per CNN. Street-by-street fighting was reported in the suburb of Irpin.
• An attack on civilians: Ukraine reported that Russian troops opened fire on a group of women and children trying to flee a village in the Kyiv region. Seven people, including a child, were killed.
• Death toll: Zelensky said that Russian forces have killed about 1,300 Ukrainian troops since the invasion began, per the Washington Post. More than 500 Russian troops surrendered Friday, he said.
• Putin call: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron spent nearly 90 minutes on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin trying to arrange a cease-fire. Zelensky said he'd meet with Putin in Jerusalem to negotiate, provided a cease-fire was in effect. Macron described the conversation with Putin, who repeated his terms, as "difficult."

(More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)