Russia-Ukraine live updates: Biden to announce extra $800 million in military aid; Zelensky to address Congress

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday there is “hope for reaching a compromise” with the Ukrainian delegation in peace talks, echoing comments by Ukrainian officials that progress has been made.

Lavrov, speaking in an interview with the Russian television channel RBC, said he was basing his assessment on the view of the Russian negotiators.

“They state that negotiations are not easy for obvious reasons but nevertheless there is some hope for reaching a compromise,” Lavrov said.

The Russian foreign minister said the Ukrainian delegation has issued similar statements expressing hope for an agreement.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said on Twitter late Tuesday that negotiations with the Russian delegation would continue Wednesday.

“There are fundamental contradictions,” Podolyak said. “But there is certainly room for compromise.”

In his lengthy interview, Lavrov took aim at the United States and said the conflict in Ukraine is “not as much about Ukraine as it is about the legal world order.”

“The U.S. has steamrolled all of Europe,” Lavrov said. “This is an epochal moment in modern history. It reflects the fight for what the world order is going to look like.”

The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said Ukraine during the talks has proposed a model similar to that of Austria or Sweden, “neutral demilitarized state but a government with its own army and naval powers.”

“The preservation and development of Ukraine’s neutral status, the demilitarization of Ukraine — a whole range of issues related to the size of the Ukrainian army are being discussed,” Medinsky said, according to Russian state news service RIA Novosti.

Weeks into the war in Ukraine, Facebook’s parent company Meta is poised to tap its oversight board for guidance about a policy shift allowing users in Ukraine to post some calls for violence against Russian invaders.

It would mark the first time the panel has formally weighed in on the tech giant’s flurry of actions in response to the war, and it could shape its rules on violent rhetoric moving forward.

But the seemingly narrow scope and late timing of the board’s entrance highlight the limits of its powers, particularly involving high-stakes decisions happening in rapidly unfolding global conflicts.

Since Russia launched its invasion, the tech giant has shut down access to Russian state-media outlets in Europe and limited the reach of their posts, blocked digital advertising and monetization tools in Russia, and most recently temporarily exempted users in Ukraine in some cases from rules against calling for violence.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday he has received “written guarantees” from the United States that Western sanctions on Russia related to Ukraine won’t affect Russia’s role in the Iran nuclear deal, potentially paving the way for a resumption of stalled talks to revive the agreement.

Lavrov was speaking alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who was visiting Moscow. Negotiations in Vienna on reviving the 2015 deal were suspended Friday after a new Russian demand for guarantees on the sanctions threw the discussions into disarray.

The State Department insisted that “nothing additional” has been offered to Moscow beyond the terms of the original Iran nuclear agreement, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. But “it has been logical to us, and should be logical to all parties, that we would not sanction Russia’s participation in nuclear projects that are part of a full return to the JCPOA,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

Back in 2016, U.S. officials waited months to officially blame Russia for trying to influence the election by hacking Democrats’ emails.

Now researchers are urging the government to move a lot faster in the 2022 and 2024 elections to release any information it might garner about potential Russian cyber and disinformation campaigns.

The goal is to subvert Kremlin plans, blunt the force of any hack and release operations and help guard against deceiving American voters with phony claims during an election cycle.

It’s modeled on a rapid declassification of intelligence on Russia’s Ukraine invasion, which was widely celebrated by analysts who said it blunted Russian efforts to justify the invasion and helped strengthen U.S. allies’ opposition.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin intensifies his war in Ukraine, the 69-year-old leader has become increasingly isolated, according to U.S. and European intelligence officials, including from some of his closest advisers.

Most people, including business leaders and politicians, who were once part of Putin’s inner circle now appear unwilling or unable to pressure him to reverse course, even as global sanctions send Russia’s economy into a tailspin.

Several prominent Russian businessmen, including industrialist Oleg Deripaska and billionaire banker Mikhail Fridman, have called publicly for peace. But, as the economic noose tightens around Putin and his associates, Western policymakers say they hope that more aides and former confidants will step up and challenge the president.

The Washington Post has identified some key players in the wider network of political and economic elites that surrounds the Russian leader, including oil executives, steel tycoons, media moguls and spy chiefs. Some have a net worth of at least $1 billion, according to Forbes.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers a virtual address to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, he will become the latest world leader in a long history of foreign and religious leaders to speak to the lawmaking body.

Joint meetings of Congress have historically been an opportunity for lawmakers to hear from an internationally respected figure. The gatherings became a standard part of foreign leaders’ visits to the United States after the end of World War II in 1945. Since then, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, South African President Nelson Mandela, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Pope Francis and Queen Elizabeth II have all addressed Congress.

The session Wednesday will give members another opportunity to show bipartisan support for Ukraine after Russia invaded the Eastern European country three weeks ago.

Russian troops are “struggling” to advance in Ukraine following “challenges posed by Ukraine’s terrain,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday in an intelligence update that outlined the factors contributing to the stalling of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion timetable.

The ministry credited the tactics of Ukraine’s military for “frustrating” Russian forces and “inflicting heavy losses.” It noted that the destruction of bridges by Ukrainian forces has slowed Russian troops trying to push into key cities.

The intelligence update reported that Russia has failed to “gain control of the air” and that this has further limited its options during the invasion.

“What we know is that Vladimir Putin’s plans are not going according to plan,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told Sky News in an interview Wednesday. “He is not making the progress expected, and we know the sanctions we’ve put on are working.”

Truss said that sweeping sanctions imposed by Britain and other nations amid Putin’s invasion were having a “debilitating affect” on Russia’s economy. She said the British government has more people and businesses on its sanctions list.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address late Tuesday that negotiations with Russia were heading in a “more realistic” direction, as the war nears its third full week.

“The meetings continue, and I am informed that the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic,” Zelensky said, speaking at his desk. “But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine.”

“Everyone should work … for negotiations with the Russian Federation,” he said, adding that “it is difficult but important as any war ends with an agreement.”

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will continue Wednesday, and officials on both sides have projected optimism in recent days that a compromise could emerge.

On Tuesday, Zelensky hinted that he may have backed down, for now, from his long-standing desire for Ukraine to join NATO — a sticking point for Russia.

“It is clear that Ukraine is not a member of NATO. We understand this. … For years we heard about the apparently open door, but have already also heard that we will not enter there, and these are truths and must be acknowledged,” Zelensky said during an address to leaders of 10 North Atlantic countries led by Britain, a group known as the Joint Expeditionary Force.

However, the Kremlin on Tuesday suggested that any breakthrough is far off, with Russian President Vladimir Putin telling a European leader that Kyiv “is not showing a serious commitment to finding mutually acceptable solutions,” according to a statement from Moscow.