Blinken: U.S. does not have a strategy of regime change in Russia
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks after viewing the “Burma’s Path To Genocide” exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, March 21, 2022.
Kevin Lamarque | AFP | Getty Images
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the U.S. has no strategy to bring about regime change in Russia.
Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Israel, Blinken sought to clarify comments by President Joe Biden who said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.”
“I think the president, the White House, made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else,” Blinken said Sunday.
“As you know, and as you have heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia – or anywhere else, for that matter.”
Following Biden’s comments Saturday, a White House official also stressed that the president “was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change,” but rather was making the point that Putin “cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”
— Katrina Bishop
Ukraine deputy PM says 2 humanitarian corridors agreed to
Two humanitarian corridors have been agreed to in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, according to a NBC News translation.
People will be allowed to evacuate via personal transport along the corridor from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia , she said. She added there will also be evacuation buses from Berdyansk to Zaporizhzhia. Vereshchuk also said there will be evacuations from Rubizhne to Bakhmut.
— Christine Wang
Russians may be trying to encircle Ukrainian forces in east
Russian forces appear to be trying to encircle Ukrainian troops who are facing separatist fighters in the far east of the country, according to a new intelligence assessment.
The U.K. Ministry of Defence, in its daily update, said on Sunday that Russian units are trying to advance southward from Kharkiv and northward from Mariupol. If successful, those maneuvers could cut off Ukraine’s soldiers who are already engaged against separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk.
CNBC was unable to independently confirm the ministry’s report.
Kharkiv and Mariupol are both still in Ukrainian hands but have been blasted for weeks by Russian artillery, killing civilians and defenders alike. Ukraine’s government this week refused a Russian demand that it surrender Mariupol.
Russia claims that it isn’t using artillery against civilian targets, despite overwhelming evidence that it is.
Meanwhile, tenacious Ukrainian defensive efforts continue to block Moscow’s invasion in the north of the country, which would include the long-stalled Russian drive toward Kyiv.
“The battlefield across northern Ukraine remains largely static with local Ukrainian counterattacks hampering Russian attempts to reorganise their forces,” the British ministry said.
—Ted Kemp
Ukraine says more than 5,000 people were evacuated from cities today
Evacuees fleeing Ukraine-Russia conflict sit in the body of a cargo vehicle while waiting in a line to leave the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine March 17, 2022.
Alexander Ermochenko | Reuters
A total of 5,208 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors today, a senior official said, fewer than the 7,331 who managed to escape the previous day.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president’s office, said in an online post that 4,331 people had left the besieged city of Mariupol.
—Reuters
U.S. will provide $100 million in civilian security assistance to Ukraine
Egor, 5, comforts his mother Helen Yakubets who cries in a ballroom, which has been converted to a temporary shelter, at the Mandachi hotel after fleeing from Chernihiv in Ukraine to Romania, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at the border crossing in Suceava, Romania, March 20, 2022. Her 18 year old son and husband remain in Ukraine to fight.
Clodagh Kilcoyne | Reuters
The United States will provide $100 million to Ukraine in civilian security assistance, according to the State Department.
The aid will “enhance the capacity of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs to provide essential border security, sustain civil law enforcement functions, and safeguard critical governmental infrastructure,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
The announcement comes after Lviv, a city near the Poland border in western Ukraine, suffered rocket strikes earlier today.
—Darla Mercado
