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COVID shots still work but researchers hunt new improvements
COVID-19 vaccinations are at a critical juncture as companies test whether new approaches like combination shots or nasal drops can keep up with a mutating coronavirus — even though it’s not clear if changes are needed.
Already there’s public confusion about who should get a second booster now and who can wait. There’s also debate about whether pretty much everyone might need an extra dose in the fall.
“I’m very concerned about booster fatigue” causing a loss of confidence in vaccines that still offer very strong protection against COVID-19’s worst outcomes, said Dr. Beth Bell of the University of Washington, an adviser to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Despite success in preventing serious illness and death, there’s growing pressure to develop vaccines better at fending off milder infections, too — as well as options to counter scary variants.
“We go through a fire drill it seems like every quarter, every three months or so” when another mutant causes frantic tests to determine if the shots are holding, Pfizer vaccine chief Kathrin Jansen told a recent meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Yet seeking improvements for the next round of vaccinations may seem like a luxury for U.S. families anxious to protect their littlest children — kids under 5 who are not yet eligible for a shot. Moderna’s Dr. Jacqueline Miller told The Associated Press that its application to give two low-dose shots to the youngest children would be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration “fairly soon.” Pfizer hasn’t yet reported data on a third dose of its extra-small shot for tots, after two didn’t prove strong enough.
COMBINATION SHOTS MAY BE NEXT
The original COVID-19 vaccines remain strongly protective against serious illness, hospitalization and death, especially after a booster dose, even against the most contagious variants.
Updating the vaccine recipe to match the latest variants is risky, because the next mutant could be completely unrelated. So companies are taking a cue from the flu vaccine, which offers protection against three or four different strains in one shot every year.
Moderna and Pfizer are testing 2-in-1 COVID-19 protection that they hope to offer this fall. Each “bivalent” shot would mix the original, proven vaccine with an omicron-targeted version.
Moderna has a hint the approach could work. It tested a combo shot that targeted the original version of the virus and an earlier variant named beta — and found vaccine recipients developed modest levels of antibodies capable of fighting not just beta but also newer mutants like omicron. Moderna now is testing its omicron-targeted bivalent candidate.
But there’s a looming deadline. FDA’s Dr. Doran Fink said if any updated shots are to be given in the fall, the agency would have to decide on a recipe change by early summer.
DON’T EXPECT BOOSTERS EVERY FEW MONTHS
For the average person, two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine plus one booster — a total of three shots — “gets you set up” and ready for what may become an annual booster, said Dr. David Kimberlin, a CDC adviser from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
After that first booster, CDC data suggests an additional dose offers most people an incremental, temporary benefit.
Also read: WHO recommends Pfizer's Covid pill Paxlovid
Why the emphasis on three shots? Vaccination triggers development of antibodies that can fend off coronavirus infection but naturally wane over time. The next line of defense: Memory cells that jump into action to make new virus-fighters if an infection sneaks in. Rockefeller University researchers found those memory cells become more potent and able to target more diverse versions of the virus after the third shot.
Even if someone who’s vaccinated gets a mild infection, thanks to those memory cells “there’s still plenty of time to protect you against severe illness,” said Dr. Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
But some people — those with severely weakened immune systems — need more doses up-front for a better chance at protection.
And Americans 50 and older are being offered a second booster, following similar decisions by Israel and other countries that offer the extra shot to give older people a little more protection.
The CDC is developing advice to help those eligible decide whether to get an extra shot now or wait. Among those who might want a second booster sooner are the elderly, people with health problems that make them particularly vulnerable, or who are at high risk of exposure from work or travel.
COULD NASAL VACCINES BLOCK INFECTION?
It’s hard for a shot in the arm to form lots of virus-fighting antibodies inside the nose where the coronavirus latches on. But a nasal vaccine might offer a new strategy to prevent infections that disrupt people’s everyday lives even if they’re mild.
“When I think about what would make me get a second booster, I actually would want to prevent infection,” said Dr. Grace Lee of Stanford University, who chairs CDC’s immunization advisory committee. “I think we need to do better.”
Nasal vaccines are tricky to develop and it’s not clear how quickly any could become available. But several are in clinical trials globally. One in late-stage testing, manufactured by India’s Bharat Biotech, uses a chimpanzee cold virus to deliver a harmless copy of the coronavirus spike protein to the lining of the nose.
“I certainly do not want to abandon the success we have had” with COVID-19 shots, said Dr. Michael Diamond of Washington University in St. Louis, who helped create the candidate that’s now licensed to Bharat.
But “we’re going to have a difficult time stopping transmission with the current systemic vaccines,” Diamond added. “We have all learned that.”
UNGA chief calls for shift to green economies on Mother Earth Day
In keeping with this year's Mother Earth Day theme "Harmony with Nature and Biodiversity: Ecological economics and Earth-centered law," UN General Assembly (UNGA) President Abdulla Shahid Friday called for a shift to green economies.
"Nature is suffering. Oceans are filling with plastic and turning more acidic; extreme heat, wildfires and floods have affected millions; and we are still facing Covid-19, a worldwide health pandemic linked to the health of our ecosystem," the senior UN official said.
"Science has shown that our continued and careless encroachment into the world's ecosystems" has damaged biodiversity and endangered human health and well-being."
The international community needs to use the tools and targets of the Paris Agreement on climate change and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as blueprints for a sustainable recovery from Covid, Abdulla said.
Climate change, man-made changes to nature as well as crimes that disrupt biodiversity, such as deforestation, land-use change, intensified agriculture and livestock production or the growing illegal wildlife trade, can accelerate the speed of destruction of the planet.
This is the first Mother Earth Day celebrated within the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Ecosystems support all life on Earth. The healthier the ecosystems are, the healthier the planet and its people will be.
Restoring the damaged ecosystems will help end poverty, combat climate change and prevent mass extinction, says the UN.
Guterres to meet Putin, Zelenskyy next week
UN Secretary-General António Guterres will travel to Russia and Ukraine next week to meet with the foreign ministers and presidents of these countries.
Nearly two months of intense and escalating hostilities in Ukraine continue to have horrific repercussions for civilians and caused a grave humanitarian crisis.
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Guterres will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Tuesday, where he will also hold talks with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The UN secretary-general will then travel to Kyiv Thursday, where he will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
In both visits, he aims to talk about "what can be done to bring peace to Ukraine urgently" and help people get to safety, UN Spokesperson Eri Kaneko said at a briefing in New York.
To step up efforts to end the war in Ukraine, Guterres had asked to meet the leaders of Russia and Ukraine in separate letters handed to their countries' permanent missions to the UN.
Over 5 million people fled Ukraine to seek safety in other countries and another 7.1 million have been internally displaced across the country, according to the intergovernmental organisation.
Death toll in Afghan mosque bombing rises to 33, Taliban say
A Taliban official says a bombing at a mosque and religious school in northern Afghanistan on Friday killed at least 33 people, including students of a religious school.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s deputy culture and information minister, said the bombing in the town of Imam Saheb, in Kunduz Province, also wounded another 43 people, many of them students.
No one immediately claimed responsibility, but Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate on Friday claimed a series of bombings that happened a day earlier, the worst of which was an attack on a Shiite mosque in northern Mazar-e-Sharif that killed at least 12 Shiite Muslim worshippers and wounded scores more.
Earlier the Kunduz provincial police spokesman put the death toll at the Malawi Bashir Ahmad Mosque and madrassa compound in Imam Saheb at two dead and six injured. Mujahid later tweeted the higher casualty numbers tweeting “we condemn this crime . . . and express our deepest condolences to the victims.”
Friday’s bombing is the latest in a series of deadly attacks across Afghanistan. Mujahid called the perpetrator’s of the Kunduz attack “seditionists and evil elements.”
The United Nations called the attack “horrific.” Deputy special representative to Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov said in a tweet that “killings must stop now and perpetrators brought to justice.”
READ: 4 Afghan children killed in unexploded ordnance blast: gov't
Since sweeping to power last August, the Taliban have been battling the upstart Islamic State affiliate known as Islamic State in Khorasan Province or IS-K which is proving to be an intractable security challenge for Afghanistan’s religiously driven government.
Last October the IS-K claimed a brutal bombing also in northern Kunduz province at a Shiite mosque that killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 100. In November the Taliban’s intelligence unit carried out sweeping attacks on suspected IS-K hideouts in eastern Nangarhar province, where the deadly affiliate is headquartered.
In a statement Friday, the IS-K said the explosive devise that devastated Mazar-e-Sharif’s Sai Doken mosque was hidden in a bag left inside among scores of worshippers. As they knelt in prayer, it exploded.
“When the mosque was filled with prayers, the explosives were detonated remotely,” the IS statement said, claiming that 100 people were injured.
The Taliban say they have arrested a former IS-K leader in northern Balkh province, of which Mazar-e-Sharif is the capital. Zabihullah Noorani, information and culture department chief in Balkh province, said Abdul Hamid Sangaryar was arrested in connection with Thursday’s mosque attack.
The IS-K had been relatively inactive in Afghanistan since last November, but in recent weeks have stepped up its attacks in Afghanistan and in neighboring Pakistan, taking aim at Shiite Muslim communities reviled by Sunni radicals.
Earlier this month two bombs exploded in Kabul’s Shiite neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi, killing at least seven students and wounding several others.
The IS-K established its headquarters in eastern Afghanistan in 2014 and have been blamed for some of the worst attacks in Afghanistan, including a vicious assault on a maternity hospital and at a school that killed more than 80 girls in 2021, months before the Taliban took power.
The IS-K also took responsibility for a brutal bombing outside the Kabul International Airport in August 2021 that killed more than 160 Afghans who had been pushing to enter the airport to flee the country. Thirteen U.S. military personnel also were killed as they oversaw America’s final withdrawal and the end of its 20-year war in Afghanistan.
In recent months, the IS-K has also stepped up attacks in neighboring Pakistan, targeting a Shiite mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar in March. More than 65 worshippers were killed. The upstart affiliate has also claimed several deadly attacks against Pakistan’s military .
In Pakistan’s central Punjab city of Faisalabad, the local police on Thursday issued a threat warning, saying “it has been learned that IS-Khas planned to carry out terrorist activities in Faisalabad,” advising people to “exercise extreme vigilance.” The police warning did not elaborate.
Meanwhile late on Thursday a Pakistani soldier was killed in southwestern Baluchistan province after militants raided a security outpost. No one claimed responsibility. The area has been targeted by both IS-K as well as the violent Pakistani Taliban militants known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) also headquartered in neighboring Afghanistan.
The safe havens of militant groups in Afghanistan has raised concerns for Pakistan which earlier this month carried out air strikes inside Pakistan, killing at least 20 children, according to the United Nations education fund (UNICEF).
Pakistan has not confirmed the strikes but has warned Afghanistan’s Taliban to stop its territory being used to attack across the border into Pakistan.
In separate incidents, five children were killed Friday in northern Afghanistan’s Faryab Province while playing with unexploded ordnance. In one incident, three brothers died when they found an unexploded device and tried to dismantle it. In a second incident in another village, two children, ages 7 and 8, were killed playing with a device, said Shamsullah Mohammadi, Faryab provincial information and culture head.
After more than four decades of war, that included two invasions — one by the former Soviet Union and one by the U.S.-led coalition — Afghanistan is one of the heaviest mined countries in the world and is littered with unexploded ordnance.
UN chief to meet with Putin, Zelenskyy to press for peace
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is set to meet separately with the presidents of Russia and Ukraine next week to make urgent, face-to-face pleas for peace, the world body said Friday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Guterres is to meet Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and that Putin will also host the U.N. chief.
The U.N. later said that Guterres will head Thursday to Ukraine to see President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
In both visits, Guterres aims to discuss “steps that can be taken right now” to stop the fighting and help people get to safety, U.N. spokesperson Eri Kaneko said.
Also Read: Satellite photos show possible mass graves near Mariupol
“He hopes to talk about what can be done to bring peace to Ukraine urgently,” she said.
Guterres had asked Tuesday to meet with the presidents in their respective capitals.
Guterres has urged Russia to stop its attack since it began two months ago, in what he called “the saddest moment” in his five years in the U.N.’s top job. He appealed Tuesday for a four-day “humanitarian pause” in fighting leading up to Sunday’s Orthodox Easter holiday.
“Stop the bloodshed and destruction. Open a window for dialogue and peace,” he implored.
Guterres sent the U.N.’s top humanitarian official to Moscow and Kyiv earlier this month to explore the possibilities of a cease-fire.
But the secretary-general had faced questions about whether he himself should travel to press for peace. In a recent letter, former U.N. officials called on him to step up his personal, public involvement.
Whatever overtures may have been made privately, the now-planned trip “is a visible symbol of what the United Nations is supposed to be standing for, which is peace and security,” one of the letter-writers, former U.N. political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman, said by phone Friday.
“I don’t think any of us should have exaggerated expectations about what the secretary-general will be able to accomplish, but he has significant moral power,” said Feltman, now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “It’s important that the secretary-general have these conversations.”
Also Read: Zelenskyy gets John F. Kennedy award for defending democracy
Former Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon went to Moscow and Kyiv in March 2014 to try to foster talks and diplomacy as Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
Fate of sustainable development hinges on world's cities: UN
The future of sustainable development will hinge on the fate of cities as more than half of the world's population now live in urban environments, a number likely to rise to nearly 70 percent by 2050, according to the UN officials.
"The actions we take now must lead us to…a new social integration based on the principles of prosperity, transformation, adaptation, equity and respect for human rights," said Martha Delgado, president of the UN-Habitat Assembly Thursday.
Highlighting urbanisation as one of today's great megatrends, she called for resilient, sustainable "smart cities" that are more inclusively governed and better prepared to navigate future shocks and crises.
"Sustainable development will hinge on how we manage urbanisation," Economic and Social Council President Collen Vixen Kelapile said, adding that current discussions should be framed in the context of responding to Covid response and the climate crisis.
Around 1.2 billion people in the global South now live in informal settlements and slums and they have long struggled to prevent disease transmissions, now including Covid, Collen added.
In the global North, dependence on welfare, where available, increased manifold during the pandemic and many people entered the ranks of the homeless.
In response, cities have deployed creative actions and provided services in underserved areas, while new urban models are beginning to pay more attention to pedestrians and mixed land uses.
"The world's cities have been absorbing much of Covid's socio-economic impact," UN-Habitat chief Maimunah Mohd Sharif said.
"However, that has often resulted in closer cooperation between national and local governments, which, in turn, has led to greater reclamation, greening and inclusive use of public space."
"Cities can spearhead innovations to bridge the inequalities gaps, deliver climate action and ensure a green and inclusive Covid recovery," said Amina Mohammed, deputy secretary-general of the UN and chair of the UN Sustainable Development Group.
"Urban spaces connect the dots on many of today's global challenges."
WHO recommends Pfizer's Covid pill Paxlovid
The UN health agency Friday "strongly recommended" the use of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, sold under the name Paxlovid, for mild and moderate Covid patients at the highest risk of hospital admission.
The oral antiretroviral drug was developed by Pfizer and is "the best therapeutic choice for high-risk patients to date," the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
The recommendation is based on new data from two randomised controlled trials involving more than 3,000 patients that found an 85 percent reduction in the risk of hospitalisation.
Read: WHO says global COVID cases, deaths declined again last week
However, the WHO said availability, lack of price transparency in bilateral deals made by the producer, and the need for prompt and accurate testing before administering it are turning this life-saving medicine into a major challenge for low- and middle-income countries.
One obstacle for low- and middle-income countries is that the medicine can only be administered while the disease is at its early stages, making prompt and accurate testing essential for successful outcomes.
Britain, India call for immediate cease-fire in Ukraine
India and Britain on Friday called on Russia for an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced steps to help move New Delhi away from its dependence on Russia by expanding economic and defense ties.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told reporters that he and Johnson discussed the situation in Ukraine, underscoring the importance of diplomacy and dialogue to settle issues.
“Both sides also called for a free, open, inclusive and rule-based order in the Indo-Pacific,″ Modi said in an apparent reference to China’s increasing assertiveness in the region.
Johnson did not pressure Modi to take a tougher stand against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, said Harsh Shringla, India’s foreign secretary.
Johnson told reporters that India had come out strongly against the killings in Bucha earlier this month.
The British prime minister also said “he (Modi) has already intervened several times with Vladimir Putin to ask him what on Earth he is doing and where it is going.”
Read: Satellite photos show possible mass graves near Mariupol
Johnson said the two countries will try to conclude a free trade deal by October that is expected to double their current $50 billion bilateral trade by 2030.
“There are some difficult issues — like a tariff on whisky is a tough one. It would be great if we could fix that. But there are big opportunities, we can get it done. I’m optimistic,” he said.
Johnson switched over to the Hindi language to describe Modi as a “Khaas Dost,” or special friend, and said, “Our relations have never been as strong or as good between us as they are now,”
Johnson said Britain will issue an open general export license to India, reducing bureaucracy and shortening delivery times for defense procurement.
“This is our first OGEL in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.
Johnson also announced $1.29 billion in new investments and export deals in areas from software engineering and artificial intelligence to health, creating almost 11,000 jobs across the United Kingdom.
India welcomed Britain’s commitment to invest $1 billion in climate-related projects in India between 2022 and 2026, according to a joint statement issued after the talks between the leaders.
The two countries also agreed to collaborate on the manufacturing of defense equipment, systems, spare parts and components under the “Make in India” program through a transfer of technology and setting up of joint ventures.
“They noted cooperation in key areas of strategic collaboration, including modern fighter aircraft and jet engine advanced core technology,” it said.
Read: UK to reopen embassy in Kyiv next week
The two countries are also committing up to $96.8 million to roll out adaptable clean tech innovations from India to the wider Indo-Pacific and Africa, and working together on international development and girls’ education, a British High Commission statement said.
Soon after his arrival in India on Thursday, Johnson said he was aware of the close ties that India and Russia have shared.
“We have to reflect that reality. But clearly, I’ll be talking about it to Narendra Modi,” he told reporters in Ahmedabad, the capital of western Gujarat state, where he landed.
Modi recently called the situation in Ukraine “very worrying” and has appealed to both sides for peace. While India has condemned the killings of civilians in Ukraine, it has so far not criticized Putin, and abstained when the U.N. General Assembly voted this month to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council.
Modi has also responded coolly to pressure from U.S. President Joe Biden and others to curb imports of Russian oil in response to the invasion.
Johnson said Friday that “the world faces growing threats from autocratic states which seek to undermine democracy, choke off free and fair trade and trample on sovereignty.”
“Our collaboration on the issues that matter to both our countries, from climate change to energy security and defense, is of vital importance as we look to the future,″ he said.
The British High Commission statement said Britain is offering next-generation defense and security collaboration across five domains — land, sea, air, space and cyber — to face complex new threats.
Britain will also seek to support India’s requirements for new technology to identify and respond to threats in the Indian Ocean, the statement said.
Johnson said he and Modi also discussed new cooperation on clean and renewable energy, aimed at supporting India’s energy transition away from imported oil and increasing its resilience through secure and sustainable energy.
India receives relatively little of its oil from Russia, but ramped up purchases recently because of discounted prices. India is a major buyer of Russian weapons, and recently purchased advanced Russian air defense systems.
WHO says global COVID cases, deaths declined again last week
The World Health Organization says that the number of reported new COVID-19 cases worldwide decreased by nearly a quarter last week, continuing a decline since the end of March.
The Geneva-based U.N. health agency said in a weekly report that nearly 5.59 million cases were reported between April 11 and 17, 24% fewer than in the previous week. The number of newly reported deaths dropped 21% to 18,215.
Read: Global Covid cases top 506 million
WHO said new cases declined in every region, though only by 2% in the Americas. The report was dated late Wednesday and sent to journalists on Thursday.
The agency said that “these trends should be interpreted with caution as several countries are progressively changing their COVID-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected.”
Read: ‘It’s not the end’: The children who survived Bucha’s horror
The countries with the highest reported case numbers last week were South Korea with more than 972,000, France with over 827,000 and Germany with more than 769,000, WHO said. The highest numbers of new deaths were reported by the U.S., with 3,076, Russia with 1,784 and South Korea with 1,671.
In all, more than 502 million cases of COVID-19 and nearly 6.2 million deaths related to the coronavirus have been reported so far.
‘Days or hours left’: Russia tightens the noose in Mariupol
Russian forces tightened the noose around the defenders holed up Wednesday in a mammoth steel plant that represented the last known Ukrainian stronghold in Mariupol, as a fighter apparently on the inside pleaded on a video for help: “We may have only a few days or hours left.”
With the holdouts coming under punishing new bombing attacks, another attempt to evacuate civilians trapped in the pulverized port city failed because of continued fighting.
Meanwhile, the number of people fleeing the country topped 5 million, the Kremlin said it submitted a draft of its demands for ending the war, and the West raced to supply Ukraine with heavier weapons to counter the Russians’ new drive to seize the industrial east.
With global tensions running high, Russia reported the first successful test launch of a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile, the Sarmat. President Vladimir Putin boasted it can overcome any missile defense system and make those who threaten Russia “think twice,” and the head of the Russian state aerospace agency called the launch out of northern Russia “a present to NATO.”
The Pentagon described the test as “routine” and said it wasn’t considered a threat.
On the battlefield, Ukraine said Moscow continued to mount assaults across the east, probing for weak points in Ukrainian defensive lines. Russia said it launched hundreds of missile and air attacks on targets that included concentrations of troops and vehicles.
The Kremlin’s stated goal is the capture of the Donbas, the mostly Russian-speaking eastern region that is home to coal mines, metal plants and heavy-equipment factories. Detaching it would give Putin a badly needed victory two months into the war, after the botched attempt to storm the capital, Kyiv.
The Luhansk governor said Russian forces now control 80% of his region, which is one of two that make up the Donbas. Before Russia invaded on Feb. 24, the Kyiv government controlled 60% of the Luhansk region.
Gov. Serhiy Haidai said the Russians, after seizing the small city of Kreminna, are now threatening the cities of Rubizhne and Popasna. He urged all residents to evacuate immediately.
“The occupiers control only parts of these cities, unable to break through to the centers,” Haidai said on the messaging app Telegram.
Analysts say the offensive in the east could devolve into a war of attrition as Russia runs up against Ukraine’s most experienced, battle-hardened troops, who have fought pro-Moscow separatists in the Donbas for eight years.
Also Read: Russians leave Chernobyl; Ukraine braces for renewed attacks
Russia said it presented Ukraine with a draft document outlining its demands for ending the conflict — days after Putin said the talks were at a “dead end.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “the ball is in their court, we’re waiting for a response.” He gave no details on the draft, and it was not clear when it was sent or if it offered anything new to the Ukrainians, who presented their own demands last month.
Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskyy said he had not seen or heard of the proposal, though one of his top advisers said the Ukrainian side was reviewing it.
Also Read: Russians leave Chernobyl site as fighting rages elsewher
Moscow has long demanded Ukraine drop any bid to join NATO. Ukraine has said it would agree to that in return for security guarantees from a number of other countries. Other sources of tension include the status of both the Crimean Peninsula, seized by Moscow in 2014, and eastern Ukraine, where the separatists have declared independent republics recognized by Russia.
In devastated Mariupol, Ukraine said the Russians dropped heavy bombs to flatten what was left of the sprawling Azvostal steel plant, believed to be the city’s last pocket of resistance.
A few thousand Ukrainian troops, by the Russians’ estimate, remained in the plant and its labyrinth of tunnels and bunkers spread out across about 11 square kilometers (4 square miles). Zelenskyy said about 1,000 civilians were also trapped there.
A Ukrainian posted a video plea on Facebook urging world leaders to help evacuate people from the plant, saying, “We have more than 500 wounded soldiers and hundreds of civilians with us, including women and children.”
The officer, who identified himself as Serhiy Volynskyy of the 36th Marine Brigade, said: “This may be our last appeal. We may have only a few days or hours left.” The authenticity of the video could not be independently verified.
The Russian side issued a new ultimatum to the defenders to surrender, but the Ukrainians have ignored all previous demands.
All told, more than 100,000 people were believed trapped with little if any food, water, medicine or heat in Mariupol, which had a pre-war population of over 400,000.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the latest effort to open a safe corridor for women, children and the elderly to escape failed because the Russians did not observe a cease-fire. Many previous such agreements have fallen apart because of continued fighting.
A Zelenskyy adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said on Twitter that he and other Ukrainian negotiators were ready to hold talks without any conditions to save the lives of trapped Mariupol defenders and civilians. There was no immediate response from Russia.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned of horrors yet to be revealed in Mariupol, given the death and destruction left behind in Bucha, near Kyiv, after the Russians retreated.
“We can only anticipate that when this tide also recedes from Mariupol, we’re going to see far worse, if that’s possible to imagine,” he said.
Mariupol holds strategic and symbolic value for both sides. The scale of suffering there has made it a worldwide focal point of the war. Mariupol’s fall would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, complete a land bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, and free up Russian troops to move elsewhere in the Donbas.
As Russia continued to funnel troops and equipment into the Donbas, Western nations rushed to boost the flow of military supplies to Kyiv for this new phase of the war, which is likely to involve trench warfare, long-range artillery attacks and tank battles across relatively open terrain.
U.S. President Joe Biden was set to announce plans Thursday to send more military aid to Ukraine, according to a U.S. official.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Biden will detail his plans to add to the roughly $2.6 billion in military assistance the administration has already approved. Canada and the Netherlands also said they would send more heavy weaponry.
Also, a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon’s assessment of the war, said the training of Ukrainian personnel on American 155 mm howitzers has begun in a European country outside Ukraine, and the first of 18 promised such weapons began arriving on the continent.
Putin, meanwhile, boasted that the Sarmat missile has “no equivalents in the world.” The Sarmat is intended to eventually replace the Soviet-built missile code-named Satan by NATO as a major component of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
It will ”make those who, in the heat of frantic, aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country think twice,” the Russian leader said.
Looking for a path to peace, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres requested meetings with Putin and Zelenskyy in their capitals to discuss how to stop the fighting. The U.N. received no immediate response.