Katie spoke to former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul about what’s happening, and what we can expect to see next.
Upon waking Sunday morning, it felt as though we’d entered a new, heightened stage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here’s where things stand on Monday, March 14 — plus Katie’s fascinating conversation with former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who talks us through what’s going on.
U.S. journalist killed in Russian attack
U.S. journalist Brent Renaud has been killed by Russian forces in Ukraine, CBS News reports. Documentary filmmaker Juan Arredondo, also American, was injured in the same attack.
“Somebody offered to take us to the other bridge, and we crossed a checkpoint, and they started shooting at us. So the driver turned around, and they kept shooting, two of us. My friend is Brent Renaud, and he’s been shot and left behind,” said Arredondo in a video posted by a spokeswoman for a public hospital in Kyiv.
Russian airstrike on military base kills dozens
According to CNN, Russian airstrikes hit a military base near the Polish border early Sunday, killing 35 people and hospitalizing more than 130. Ukraine’s Minister of Defence Oleksii Reznikov described the strikes as a “terrorist attack” on peace and security “near the EU-NATO border.”
Assault on Ukrainian cities intensifies
The capital Kyiv is under renewed assault with heavy explosions heard this morning. At least two people died after a residential building was hit by shelling.
Ukraine has put the death toll in the besieged city of Mariupol at more than 2,500. A pregnant woman who was at the city’s maternity hospital when it was bombed last Wednesday has died, along with her baby, according to AP.
“Our military is succeeding there — yesterday they defeated another attempt at an armored breakthrough in Mariupol, took prisoners of war,” Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser in President Zelensky’s office said Monday. “But for this, the Russians are wiping the city out.”
The international scene
Two U.S. officials have said that Russia asked China for military assistance and economic support in Ukraine — a claim China denies.
Ukraine says that a fourth round of talks with Russia will start soon. The discussion will be held virtually, with the Ukrainian negotiating team in Kyiv.
A deeper dive
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has explained in The Guardian how the war in Ukraine has dashed all his assumptions about nationalism and nuclear power. “Both Putin and Trump have exploited xenophobic nationalism to build their power,” he writes, adding “I bought the conventional wisdom that nuclear war was unthinkable. I fear I was wrong. Putin is now resorting to dangerous nuclear brinksmanship.”
Katie spoke to former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul about this frightening new phase, and what we can expect to see next.
An ingenious way to help
As people around the world look for ways to help desperate Ukrainians, two Harvard teens came up with a brilliant idea: a website for Ukrainian refugees who needed places to stay in other countries.
As the Washington Post reports, Avi Schiffmann, 19, who’d attended a demonstration in San Diego protesting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, asked his freshman classmate and coding whiz 18-year-old Marco Burstein whether he could help him develop a website fast.
On March 3, after three days and just five hours of sleep, they launched Ukraine Take Shelter. The site, which operates in 12 languages, allows Ukrainian refugees to locate hosts with spare rooms, unused resort condos, mother-in-law apartments and school dormitories.
