Joe Biden is due to see firsthand the scale of the Ukrainian refugee crisis on Friday when he visits Poland, which has taken in more than 2 million people fleeing Russian forces across the border.
His trip comes hours after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy told leaders at the European Council they had been “a little late” in imposing sanctions on Russia, suggesting the crisis could have been preventable.
The US president will fly to the eastern Polish town of Rzeszów, bringing him to within 80 km (50 miles) of the country’s border with Ukraine, which has seen a huge influx of refugees since Russia invaded a month ago.
The crisis has left public services in Poland, which was home to the biggest Ukrainian refugee population in the region before the war – struggling to cope.
Biden’s journey close to the border comes after Zelesnkiy shared his appearance at the European Council where he thanked members for putting sanctions on Russia but said it came “a little late”.
The Ukrainian president said if the sanctions had been preventative, there was a chance Russia would not have gone to war. “You blocked Nord Stream 2. We are grateful to you. And rightly so. But it was also a little late. Because if it had been in time, Russia would not have created a gas crisis. At least there was a chance,” he said.
Zelenskiy said Russia had already destroyed 230 schools, 155 kindergartens and killed 128 children in Ukraine. “Whole cities, villages. Just to ashes. Nothing remains. The Russian military killed journalists. Although they saw the inscription ‘Press’ on them. They may not have been taught to read. Only to kill.”
On the heels of summits in Brussels that aimed to show a united western front against Russia’s month-long invasion, Biden will meet experts involved in the refugee response in Warsaw.
Biden will meet Polish president Andrzej Duda to discuss the humanitarian crisis and “to thank him for everything the people of Poland are doing”, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said.
In a video address early on Friday, Zelenskiy, praised Ukrainians for their efforts during the past month and stressed the need to secure peace. Appearing exhausted, he said he had made appeals to western leaders “all for one reason – so that Russia understands that we need to achieve peace. Russia also needs to achieve peace.”
“Every day we defend, we get closer to the peace we need so much ... and you can’t stop for a minute. Because every minute is about our destiny, it is about our future. About whether we live,” he said.
As the war enters its second month, Western intelligence has suggested Ukrainian counter-attacks have enjoyed some success, saying strikes on “high value targets” are forcing Russian forces to divert resources to defend their supply lines. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) cited the attacks on a landing ship and ammunition storage depots at Berdiansk as examples.
The Saratov, a ship that had ferried soldiers destined for the besieged city of Mariupol, was destroyed by Ukrainian ballistic missiles while docked at the port city on the Azov Sea. The fire is believed to have spread to other vessels and an ammunition depot.
“It is likely that the Ukrainians will continue to target logistical assets in Russian-held areas. This will force the Russian military to prioritise the defence of their supply chain” and reduce its ability to carry out offensive operations, the MoD said.
Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces said on Thursday night that Russia’s attempt to encircle the capital, Kyiv, had not been fulfilled while attempts to blockade Chernihiv had also been unsuccessful. “[Russia] will try to resume offensive operations in the direction of the cities of Brovary and Boryspil in order to block the capital of Ukraine, the city of Kyiv, from the east,” its report said.
Russian troops are blockading the cities of Sumy and Kharkiv and striking civilian infrastructure, officials said.
Meanwhile, further reports have emerged of Russian soldiers forcibly deporting Ukrainians to Russian territory. Officials said 15,000 residents of the encircled city of Mariupol had been deported so far after being told by the soldiers that Ukraine had abandoned them, with some sent as far as the Russian island of Sakhalin in the Pacific.
Russian soldiers with loudhailers were said to be driving around parts of the city falsely claiming that the city of Odesa has fallen and that other havens for refugees were now rejecting fleeing people.
Ukraine’s ministry of defence claimed that those evacuated by the Russians were being taken to “filtration camps” such as one in Dokuchaievsk, in the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk, before being moved onwards to Russia itself.
Ukraine’s ministry of defence described the move as “a gross violation of international humanitarian law and another proof of Russia’s behaviour as a terrorist state”.
The UN told the BBC it had verified at least 36 cases of civilian detentions, with families often denied any information about those being held.
Overall, Ukraine has accused Moscow of forcibly taking 402,000 civilians, including 84,000 children, from Ukrainian cities to Russia - and raised concerns that they would be used as hostages. Russia corroborated the numbers but said the civilians had been evacuated willingly.
The situation remains grave in Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said, with attempts to evacuate the remaining 100,000 residents blocked by Russian troops.
In other developments:
Russian forces are believed to have taken heavy casualties and are low on supplies, according to western and Ukrainian officials. Russia is suffering failure rates as high as 60% for some of its precision-guided missiles, US officials told Reuters.
Joe Biden raised the stakes with Russia over its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by warning that Nato would be forced to respond if the Kremlin resorted to using chemical weapons. Speaking after emergency Nato and G7 summits in Brussels, the US president said: “The nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use.”
In video remarks released late on Thursday, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Russian forces had tortured Ukrainian prisoners. “We will find every Russian soldier who commits war crimes, along with their accomplices ... do not think that your surnames are unknown to us. No one will be able to escape punishment,” Vereshchuk said. The allegations of torture could not be independently verified.
Vereshchuk confirmed that people captured by Russian forces in Mangush while travelling in a humanitarian convoy had been freed. In a separate message post online, she said the first “full-fledged exchange of prisoners of war took place” where 10 “captured occupiers” were exchanged for 10 Ukrainian servicemen.
