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

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that “the destiny of our country is being decided” as he began a virtual address to a gathering U.S. lawmakers.

Speaking from Kyiv, Zelensky said the capital city “is under missile and airstrikes from Russian troops every day.”

“But it doesn’t give up,” he added.

“Right now, the destiny of our country is being decided, the destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free, whether they will be able to preserve their democracy,” he said.

Zelensky said that “Russia has attacked not just us, not just our land, not just our cities. It went on a brutal offensive against our values, basic human values.”

Zelensky appeared on a large screen facing lawmakers gathered in an auditorium of the Capitol Visitor Center. He was greeted by a standing ovation.

In a brief introduction, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) praised Zelensky’s “courageous leadership.”

The front rows were reserved for congressional leadership and the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, who chatted with lawmakers before Zelensky’s remarks.

Many lawmakers were wearing lapel pins with U.S. and Ukrainian flags.

Residential neighborhoods in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, have been hit by repeated Russian airstrikes in recent days, as Russian forces have slowly gained ground across the country.

Suspected Russian airstrikes on apartment buildings in Kyiv this week have killed at least six people and injured eight more, local authorities said. The attacks have prompted the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, to announce a curfew that is set to last until 7 a.m. local time on Thursday. Residents had to be evacuated.

Photos show emergency workers putting out fires in a residential building, with the inside of an apartment destroyed and residents walking through debris.

The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia traveled to Kyiv by train on Tuesday amid the fighting to demonstrate support for Ukraine and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

On Sunday and Monday, three journalists were killed and two more injured in two separate incidents outside Kyiv, sparking international condemnation from free-press groups and governments.

Russian forces have moved into areas around the capital, but their advance has not been as rapid as some analysts predicted, with Ukrainian forces preventing them from fully encircling Kyiv.

Sudarsan Raghavan and Jennifer Hassan contributed to this report.

There’s one point in Ben Collins’s assessment of the emergence of the U.S.-funded biolabs conspiracy theory that best encapsulates how that theory has been deployed — directly or indirectly to the benefit of the Russian government. The biolabs claims, the NBC News reporter wrote on Twitter, gave “pro-Trump and Q forums” an opportunity “to refocus on their major enemies: the Bidens and Anthony Fauci,” director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

At the outset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there wasn’t much gray area. Russian President Vladimir Putin was invading a sovereign nation for trumped-up reasons. There were defenses made, including by Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. But that was unsatisfying, particularly for an information ecosystem structured largely around amplifying criticisms of President Biden or downplaying the coronavirus pandemic. And then, from the heavens, a theory about covert weapons research at labs in Ukraine.

Collins traces the route this theory took from a little-noticed post from an anti-vaccine activist on a right-wing social media site to the country’s most-watched cable news network. But it is worth fleshing out and expanding the point above. Here, at last, was an agreed-upon locus for those looking to question the Biden administration and the government more broadly.

Wall Street was on track for more gains Wednesday, with U.S. markets slated to climb 1 percent or more at the opening bell as investors anticipated the first interest rate increase in years by the Federal Reserve.

The Fed is wrapping up its March meeting Wednesday, where it is expected to announce a quarter-percentage-point increase in its benchmark interest rate. Raising rates is the central bank’s best policy lever against inflation that had soared to a 40-year high even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has compounded the issue by causing major disruptions to energy markets that are rippling through the global economy.

“The central bank has a fine balancing act of taking action to curb inflation while not being too aggressive and tripping up the economy,” Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said Wednesday in comments emailed to The Washington Post. “The key question is how many more rate rises we’ll get and how quickly they will come. Fast and furious could stall the U.S.’s growth engine.”

Futures were calling for the tech-heavy Nasdaq to pop 1.9 percent at the open, and the S&P 500 to climb 1.3 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average was slated to gain 400 points, or 1.2 percent, extending gains from Tuesday’s rally, which was fueled by relief over oil prices coming down from recent highs.

Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, was trading 0.3 percent higher Wednesday, around $100 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, was trading up nearly 0.5 percent, around $96.80 per barrel.

Chinese equities saw some major recovery Wednesday after enduring days of steep sell-offs sparked by a covid surge that is threatening to throw more wrenches into the global supply chain and further heat up inflation. Stocks rebounded after officials in Beijing assured the public that the country would work to avert an economic slowdown amid the renewal of business restrictions that have shuttered some of its biggest business and technological hubs.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rocketed 9 percent higher, while the Shanghai Composite index closed up about 3.5 percent.

Marina Ovsyannikova says she fears for her safety and that of her children following her antiwar protest Monday on Russian television, an act that swiftly went viral as she publicly denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the Kremlin’s propaganda.

Speaking to Reuters Wednesday, Ovsyannikova, who was a producer for the program she interrupted, said she had concerns over her own safety and that of her family but has no plans to flee Russia.

Ovsyannikova said she hoped her protest was not in vain, and urged people to be mindful of Russia’s propaganda machine, Reuters reported.

On Tuesday, the day after Ovsyannikova burst onto the set of Russian state TV’s flagship Channel One evening news program, she was found guilty of organizing an illegal protest and fined 30,000 rubles (about $280). It remains unclear if she will face further charges.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed Ovsyannikova’s actions as “hooliganism” during a news briefing Tuesday .

Before interrupting the news broadcast Monday, Ovsyannikova, who worked as a producer at the channel, recorded a video message in which she said her father is Ukrainian and her mother is Russian. She described the war in Ukraine as a “crime” and urged Russians to demonstrate.

Spontaneous mass demonstrations are illegal in Russia, where people protesting facing the possibility of fines and jail time.

If Russia’s invasion persists, Ukraine could “freefall into poverty,” according to an assessment by the United Nations Development Program — wiping out “18 years of socio-economic achievements in Ukraine” under a worst-case scenario.

The report calls for bolstering the Ukrainian government, in addition to providing humanitarian assistance. More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled their country since Russia’s invasion began, while the UNDP estimates that more than 7 million could become internally displaced.

The UNDP, which has a team in Ukraine, previewed four economic scenarios. They range from a 7 percent contraction of the economy to a 60 percent collapse during a “severe and protracted crisis.” That could translate “into a loss of 18 years of socio-economic achievements in Ukraine and a return back to poverty levels last observed in 2004,” the UNDP said. Its report is one of the earliest attempts to quantify how far back the war could set Ukraine.

Had there been no war, the agency estimates that fewer than 1 million Ukrainians would be living below the poverty line ($5.50 per day) in 2022. Post-invasion, that figure would range from 1.7 million to 11.28 million.

A strong response from the global community could mitigate some of these drastic effects, the UNDP said. It called for “humanitarian, early recovery, and development” investments.

Nearly three weeks into their invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces are fighting to press forward in a number of cities across the country. Here are updates on some Ukrainian cities: