Despite a major withdrawal in the face of stiff Ukrainian opposition and significant losses, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted the campaign was going as planned.
Russian troops were defeated in their attempt to reach the capital of Ukraine, but are now focused on the eastern part of the country. Western officials warned that any use of chemical weapons by Russia would be a serious escalation of the already devastating war.
Western officials say that Russia invaded to topple the government and install a Moscow-friendly regime. Russian forces lost thousands of fighters and were accused of killing civilians and other atrocities in the six weeks since the ground advance stopped.
It is all about the money for Putin.
Putin insisted Tuesday that his invasion was meant to protect people in parts of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed rebels and ensure Russia's own security.
Russia had no other choice but to launch a special military operation, he said.
Putin's forces are getting ready for a major offensive in the Donbas, which has been torn by fighting between Russian- and Ukrainian-aligned forces since the beginning of the year. Military strategists say that Moscow hopes that local support, logistics and the terrain in the region will favor its larger, better-armed military, potentially allowing it to turn the tide in its favor.
In Mariupol, a strategic port city in the Donbas, a Ukrainian battalion claimed that a drone dropped a poisonous substance on the city. There were no serious injuries. The Azov Regiment's claim could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that while experts try to determine what the substance might be, the world must react now.
Zelenskyy said that not all serial rapists reach the cruelty of Russian soldiers.
The claims came after a Russia-aligned official said on Russian state TV that they should seize the plant by blocking all the exits. He denied that chemical weapons were used in Mariupol.
The deputy defense minister said that officials were looking into the possibility that the weapons had been used in Mariupol.
Ukraine is our past and our future.
The city has been ravaged by Russian troops. The mayor said Monday that the siege has left more than 10,000 civilians dead, and that the death toll in Mariupol alone could surpass 20,000.
Mykhailo Podolyak acknowledged the challenges faced by Ukrainian troops. The president and generals of Ukraine do everything possible to find a solution, but they are having issues with supplies.
For more than 1.5 months our defenders protect the city from Russian troops who are 10 times larger. They make Russia pay a high price.
The use of chemical weapons would be a callous escalation in this conflict, and Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said it would be a violation of international law.
The term "genocide" was used for the first time by US President Joe Biden.
John Kirby said in a statement that the U.S. could not confirm the report. He noted that the administration was concerned about Russia's potential to use a variety of riot control agents.
Britain has warned that Russia may use the banned weapons in Mariupol.
Most armies use phosphorus to illuminate targets. A former laboratory head at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that firing them into an enclosed space could violate the Chemical Weapons Convention.
He said that once you start using the properties of white phosphorus, toxic properties, specifically and deliberately, then it becomes banned.
The meaning of the war crimes has changed.
A senior defense official in Washington said the Biden administration was preparing a new package of military aid for Ukraine. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans. Biden approved $800 million in military assistance a month ago.
In the face of stiff resistance by Ukrainian forces, Russian forces have increasingly relied on bombarding cities, flattening many urban areas and killing thousands. More than 10 million Ukrainians have left their homes because of the war.
The discovery of large numbers of apparently massacred civilians was the result of Moscow's retreat from cities and towns.
The Interior Ministry said early Wednesday that more than 700 people had been killed in the suburbs that had been occupied by Russian troops.
Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said that there were more than 400 bodies found in the area and that the toll could go up as minesweepers comb the area.
The prosecutor-general's office said it was looking into events in the northeastern district.
The bodies of six people were found with gunshot wounds in a basement in the village of Shevchenkove.
Four people, including a 13-year-old boy, were killed when Russian forces fired on a convoy of civilians trying to leave by car from the village of Peremoha. Five people, including two children, were killed when a car was fired upon near the town of Bucha.
Here is what you can do to help people.
The accusation that hundreds of civilians were killed by Russian troops in the town of Bucha were false, according to Putin.
Speaking at the Vostochny space launch facility in Russia's far east, Putin said the West would fail to isolate Russia and its economy has withstood the ravages of war.
Addressing the pace of the campaign, he said Moscow was proceeding calmly and rhythmically to achieve the planned goals while minimizing the losses.
In the western Khmelnytskyi region, the Russian defense ministry said it used air- and sea-launched missiles to destroy an ammunition depot and airplane hangar.
Karmanau was reporting from Lviv, Ukraine. Robert Burns is an Associated Press writer in Washington.
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