Russian Invasion of UkraineWhat Happened on Day 48 of the War in Ukraine

Russia is pouring troops and equipment into eastern Ukraine, presaging a bloody new chapter in the conflict. The U.S., Britain and Australia said they were investigating an unconfirmed report that Russia had deployed a chemical agent, after a handful of people in Mariupol fell ill.

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Volunteer workers loaded 65 bodies into a truck at a cemetery in Bucha, Ukraine, on Tuesday. The bodies, which included those of civilians, were to be transported for further forensic investigation.Credit...Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

Follow our live news updates on the Russia-Ukraine war.

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Anton Troianovski

Reporting from Istanbul

Putin calls talks a ‘dead end’ but limits his war aims to eastern Ukraine.

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This photo released by Russian state media shows President Vladimir V. Putin speaking at the Vostochny Cosmodrome outside the eastern city of Tsiolkovsky on Tuesday.Credit...Evgeny Biyatov/Sputnik

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Tuesday that peace talks with Ukraine had reached a “dead end” and he falsely called the evidence of Russian atrocities in a Kyiv suburb “fake,” using his first extended remarks about the war in nearly a month to insist that Russia would persist in its invasion.

Speaking at a news conference at a newly built spaceport in Russia’s Far East, Mr. Putin said that Ukraine’s negotiating position at the talks, last held in Istanbul two weeks ago, was unacceptable. He pledged that Russia’s “military operation will continue until its full completion.”

But the operation’s goals, he said, centered on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russia separatists have been fighting since 2014. It was the first time that Mr. Putin himself had effectively defined a more limited aim for the war, focusing on control of the Donbas — and not all of Ukraine, which Mr. Putin and his subordinates have said should not even be an independent country.

“We will act rhythmically and calmly, according to the plan that was initially proposed by the general staff,” Mr. Putin said. “Our goal is to help the people who live in the Donbas, who feel their unbreakable bond with Russia.”

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Women leaving by train at the Sloviansk central station in the Donbas region of Ukraine on Tuesday. The Ukrainian leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the Donbas have asked civilians to evacuate west ahead of an anticipated Russian offensive there.Credit...Ronaldo Schemidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Just over a month ago, by contrast, Mr. Putin warned that Ukraine’s leaders risked “the future of Ukrainian statehood” by resisting the Russian invasion, which Kremlin military planners appeared to have mistakenly thought could be achieved with relative ease.

Still, Mr. Putin’s assertion of Russia’s more limited war aims in Ukraine cannot necessarily be taken at face value, and he may yet harbor an ultimate goal of taking control of the former Soviet republic. For months leading up to the Feb. 24 invasion, as Russian forces massed on Ukraine’s border, Russian officials insisted there were no plans to invade and that the buildup was merely a military exercise.

Ukrainian and Western officials have said they expect that Russia, having failed to seize the capital Kyiv and most other key cities in an invasion hampered by poor logistics, would soon mount an intense offensive in the Donbas, where the Russian military has been pouring in troops.

But almost seven weeks into the war, the Russians have yet to conquer Mariupol, the strategically important southern Donbas port that has come to symbolize the death and destruction wrought by the invaders so far. Western officials said they were evaluating unverified accounts that Russian forces may have dropped chemical weapons on a Mariupol steel mill that has become a bastion of Ukrainian army resistance. The use of chemical weapons is a war crime.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, referring to the unverified accounts from Mariupol, said he took them “as seriously as possible.”

“Even during the Second World War, the Donbas did not see such cruelty in such a short period of time,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video released early Wednesday. “And from who? From Russian troops.”

Russian forces also have repeatedly fired missiles and artillery indiscriminately at civilian targets they have little or no hope of taking, including those in and around the eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest. On Tuesday, New York Times journalists witnessed the aftermath of a Russian cluster munitions attack on a Kharkiv suburb that left a trail of casualties, craters and punctured roofs.

And the outside pressure on Mr. Putin continued to rise. On Tuesday evening, Ukraine’s security service said it had detained Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian oligarch and politician who is Mr. Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine, releasing a photo of him handcuffed and disheveled. President Biden took a new swipe at Mr. Putin, calling him a “dictator” who has committed “genocide,” and a U.S. official said the White House would soon announce new military assistance for Ukraine worth $750 million.

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An armored vehicle belonging to pro-Russian separatist forces moving along a street during fighting near the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol on Tuesday.Credit...Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Mr. Putin’s appearance on Tuesday — coming after several weeks in which the public glimpsed the Russian leader mainly in Kremlin footage showing him holding meetings by videoconference — appeared intended to shore up domestic support for a war with no clear end in sight.

Marking Cosmonauts’ Day — the anniversary of the Soviet Cold War triumph in which Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space — Mr. Putin used the new spaceport, the Vostochny Cosmodrome, as his stage.

He was accompanied to the spaceport by President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, Mr. Putin’s closest ally, an apparent reminder to Russians that they were not completely isolated in the war.

Mr. Putin parried a question from a Russian journalist about the atrocities in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha by retreating into his familiar arguments about Western “double standards.” He claimed that the world had been silent when the United States bombed Syria in the campaign against the Islamic State, and that Mr. Lukashenko had provided evidence that the scenes in Bucha were an orchestrated, British “provocation.”

“We discussed in detail this psychological special operation that the English carried out,” Mr. Lukashenko said in a news conference alongside Mr. Putin, referring to Bucha.

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This photo released by Russian state media shows Mr. Putin, right, meeting with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus on Tuesday.Credit...Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik

In fact, independent investigators, including journalists for The New York Times, have documented evidence of numerous execution-style killings, rapes and acts of torture against civilians in Bucha that had been carried out by Russian occupation troops before they retreated last month.

But inside Russia, Mr. Putin’s pronouncements are going increasingly unchallenged, with access to Facebook and Instagram and many independent news websites blocked, and a draconian wartime censorship law punishing any deviation from the Kremlin line with as much as 15 years in prison. While prices are rising and layoffs loom as Western companies pull out of Russia, there has been no sign yet of widespread public discontent, and pollsters see significant public support for the war.

It was the alliance of Western countries, Mr. Putin insisted, that would soon feel the political backlash from the economic pain wrought by the sanctions, as evidenced by rising prices for food and fuel. European countries, in particular, had shown yet again that they were collectively acting as a “poodle” of the United States, he said.

“They always miscalculate, not understanding that in difficult conditions, the Russian people always unite,” Mr. Putin said.

Ever since he appeared before tens of thousands at a Moscow stadium on March 18, Mr. Putin’s public appearances have been limited to brief clips showing him meeting with government officials, mostly by video link, in which he does not comment on the peace talks or the war. Instead, he lets his Defense Ministry and other officials do the talking.

Mr. Putin emerged from his cocoon on Monday for an off-camera meeting at his residence outside Moscow with Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria, the first Western leader to visit with him since the Feb. 24 invasion. Mr. Nehammer said the session left him convinced that Mr. Putin was planning a large and violent military assault on the Donbas.

On Tuesday, Mr. Putin arrived in the Amur Region of Russia’s Far East and was shown in video released by the Kremlin chatting informally with workers at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a sprawling facility that has been plagued by construction delays and remains unfinished.

While a key initial thrust of Russia’s invasion ended in a retreat, Mr. Putin insisted on Tuesday — as he did in the first weeks of the war — that the plan for what he calls the “special military operation” had not been altered. And he argued that what he called the West’s economic “blitzkrieg” to humble Russia had failed, pointing back to Soviet achievements in the space race as evidence that Russians could thrive despite sanctions.

Mr. Putin said Russia would move ahead with its lunar program, which includes a moon lander scheduled to be launched this year. And in a nod to Belarus’s status as Russia’s key ally in the war, Mr. Putin promised to send a Belarusian cosmonaut into space as early as next year.

“We are not going to isolate ourselves, and it is generally impossible to isolate anyone in the modern world, and most certainly not as huge a country as Russia,” Mr. Putin said.

Western countries have promised to continue to strengthen sanctions against Russia, with Europe increasingly discussing limits on Russian energy imports and more international businesses quitting Russia entirely. On Tuesday, Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications giant, joined its Swedish rival Ericsson in leaving Russia, portending new problems for the country’s internal communications.

Mr. Putin offered no hint on Tuesday that he was prepared to make peace before assaulting Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, which Western officials fear could be the most violent phase of the war so far. He insisted, as he has before, that Russia had no choice but to invade, alleging that the West was turning the country into an “anti-Russian bridgehead.”

“What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy,” Mr. Putin said. “They just didn’t leave us a choice. There was no choice.”

Reporting was contributed by Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Natalia Yermak from Babai, Ukraine; Ivan Nechepurenko from Istanbul; Marc Santora from Warsaw; and Shashank Bengali and Megan Specia from London.

Jesus Jiménez
April 12, 2022, 7:41 p.m. ET

Zelensky offers to exchange a Russian oligarch for Ukrainians held captive.

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A destroyed piece of artillery on a road near Kharkiv Tuesday.Credit...Felipe Dana/Associated Press

In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine rejected President Vladimir V. Putin’s assertion on Tuesday that Russia’s military operation in Ukraine was going “according to the plan,” and offered to exchange a detained pro-Russian politician for Ukrainians being held captive.

Although Russia’s initial offensive near Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, has widely been seen as a failure because its forces failed for weeks to take the city, Mr. Putin said on Tuesday that Russia’s military “operation” was going “according to the plan.” Mr. Putin spoke on Tuesday at a news conference at a spaceport in Russia’s Far East that appeared to be largely aimed at reinforcing his support at home.

Mr. Zelensky, speaking from Kyiv, asked what kind of plan could account for the heavy casualties suffered by Russian forces since the war began in February. American officials said last month that a conservative estimate put the Russian death toll at more than 7,000.

“Who could approve such a plan?” Mr. Zelensky said. “And what is the final level of their own losses acceptable for this person?”

In his address, he also remarked on the reported capture of a pro-Russian oligarch, Viktor Medvedchuk, by Ukraine’s security service. (The Kremlin spokesman said he could not confirm whether Mr. Medvedchuk had been detained.)

Mr. Zelensky proposed exchanging Mr. Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian politician seen as the Kremlin’s main agent of influence in Ukraine in recent years, for Ukrainians captured by Russian forces. It was “important that our law enforcement officials and military also consider this possibility,” he added.

Ukraine’s security service said on Tuesday that officers had detained Mr. Medvedchuk, who has long been considered one of Mr. Putin’s closest allies in Ukraine, and who disappeared from Kyiv around the start of the war. Mr. Medvedchuk had been hiding for weeks before trying to escape Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky said.

“Let Medvedchuk be an example for you: Even the former oligarch did not escape,” Mr. Zelensky said. “We will get everyone.”

Mr. Zelensky also said that Ukraine would conduct a full investigation into an unverified claim that Russia had used a possible chemical agent in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol. “It is not yet possible to draw 100 percent conclusions,” he said, but added that Western leaders should respond proactively regardless.

“The world must respond now — respond preventively,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Because after the use of weapons of mass destruction, any response will not change anything. And it will only look like a humiliation for the democratic world.”

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Michael D. ShearLisa Friedman
April 12, 2022, 7:21 p.m. ET

Gas prices are forcing Biden into an unlikely embrace of fossil fuels.

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President Biden’s announcement today on ethanol is the latest in a series of moves that run counter to the pro-environmental agenda he put forward before the price of gas jumped.Credit...Cheriss May for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Biden came into office promising to tackle the planet’s climate crisis. But rising gas prices, driven in part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have pushed the environmental-minded president to do something unlikely: embrace oil.

On Tuesday, Mr. Biden traveled to Iowa, where he announced that the Environmental Protection Agency would temporarily lift regulations prohibiting the summertime use of an ethanol-gasoline blend known as E15, which contributes to smog during the warmer months. Mr. Biden said his government was going to waive the regulation in order to lower the price of gasoline at the pump for many Americans.

“It’s going to help some people and I’m committed to whatever I can do to help, even if it’s an extra buck or two in the pockets when they fill up, make a difference in people’s lives,” Mr. Biden said after taking a tour of a facility that produces 150 million gallons of bioethanol a year. He added later: “When you have a choice, you have competition. When you have competition, you have better prices.”

The ethanol announcement is the latest move by Mr. Biden’s White House that runs counter to promises he made as a presidential candidate to pivot the United States away from fossil fuels. The price of gas, it seems, has changed his calculus. The average cost of a gallon of gas last October was $3.32; in March, it was about $4.32.

Last month, the president proposed a new policy aimed at pressuring oil companies to drill for oil on unused land, saying the companies have thousands of “permits to dig oil if they want. Why aren’t they out pumping oil?” Mr. Biden also announced the sale of 180 million barrels of oil from the country’s strategic petroleum reserve over the next six months, the largest-ever release in history.

“It will provide a historic amount of supply for a historic amount of time,” Mr. Biden said then.

Mr. Biden has walked a careful tightrope in the weeks since U.S. sanctions on Russian oil and gas sent energy prices soaring. Even as he has implored oil producers to pump more crude, the president has sought to assure his political base that meeting the needs of today’s crisis won’t distract from the longer-term goal of moving away from the fossil fuels that drive dangerous climate change.

The president’s embrace of oil underscores his awkward position between two competing priorities: the imperative to reduce America’s use of fossil fuels and the pressure to respond to the rising price of gas.

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Republicans and lobbyists for the oil and gas industries have sought to blame high gas prices on Mr. Biden’s effort to move the country toward cleaner energy sources.Credit...Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

“I don’t think when his term started Joe Biden thought he would be spending his second year tapping the strategic petroleum reserve or flying off to Des Moines to approve E15 waivers,” said Barry Rabe, a professor of political science and environmental policy at the University of Michigan.

With his broader climate change agenda and investments in wind, solar and electric vehicles largely stalled in Congress, the president’s allies say that his short-term, pro-oil actions could further disillusion the environmentally-focused voters whom Democrats need to turn out for congressional elections this fall.

“Climate voters are likely to be underwhelmed, barring a major legislative achievement,” Mr. Rabe said.

Mr. Biden’s recent actions have prompted criticism in many parts of the environmental community. Mitch Jones, managing policy director for the lobbying arm of the nonprofit group Food & Water Watch, said in a statement that the decision to waive the summertime ban on E15 is “driving us deeper into the hole of dirty fossil fuel mixtures.”

White House officials disputed the idea that Mr. Biden has shifted to embrace fossil fuels. They note that his environmental policies have always envisioned a continued reliance on oil and gas while the country makes a yearslong transition to cleaner energy sources.

And they said the current energy crisis is a stark example of why they believe Congress and Republicans should support moving to alternate forms of energy and reducing U.S. dependence on oil.

“Families need to take their kids to school and go to work, get groceries and go about their lives — and sometimes that requires gas today, this month and this year,” said Vedant Patel, a White House spokesman. “But at the very same time we must speed up — not slow down — our transition to clean energy.”

In recent weeks, Biden administration officials have announced funding to make homes energy efficient, launched a new conservation program and said the president would invoke the Defense Production Act to encourage domestic extraction and processing of minerals required to make batteries for electric vehicles.

Republicans and lobbyists for the oil and gas industries have sought to blame high gas prices on Mr. Biden’s climate agenda, arguing that prices would be lower if the White House had not pursued programs aimed at moving the country toward other forms of clean energy.

“Don’t blame the gas prices on Putin,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said earlier this month on Fox News.

He added: “It is a reaction to the shutdown of the fossil fuel industry. They go after them in every single conceivable way.”

But in reality, Mr. Biden has had limited success putting his climate agenda in place — in large part because of opposition from Republicans and the energy industry. So experts say it is difficult to blame the higher gas prices on the effects of those proposals, which have yet to be enacted.

For example, Mr. Biden proposed $300 billion in tax incentives to galvanize markets for wind and solar energy and electric vehicles. If enacted, it could cut the nation’s emissions roughly 25 percent by 2030. That legislation passed in the House, but stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Republicans and Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia.

Mr. Biden also has sought to suspend new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, a move the oil industry has maintained hurt production. Yet that policy was stopped by the courts and Mr. Biden last year auctioned off more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico — the largest lease sale in history.

Officials estimated that allowing the ethanol blend to be sold in the summer would shave 10 cents off every gallon of gasoline purchased at the approximately 2,300 stations in the country that offer it, and cast the decision as a move toward “energy independence.”

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Environmental groups have previously objected to lifting the summertime ban of ethanol due to the smog it creates in warmer weather.Credit...Stephen Groves/Associated Press

That is a small percentage of the 150,000 gas stations across the country, according to NACS, the trade association that represents convenience stores.

Mr. Biden also faces growing pressure to bring down energy prices, which helped drive the fastest rate of inflation since 1981 in March. A gallon of gas averaged $4.10 on Tuesday, according to AAA.

Ethanol is made from corn and other crops and has been mixed into some types of gasoline for years to reduce reliance on oil. But the blend’s higher volatility can contribute to smog in warmer weather. For that reason, environmental groups have traditionally objected to lifting the summertime ban. So have oil companies, which fear greater use of ethanol will cut into their sales.

How much the presence of ethanol holds down fuel prices has been a subject of debate among economists. Some experts said the decision is likely to reap larger political benefits than financial ones.

“This is still very, very small compared with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Release,” said David Victor, a climate policy expert at the University of California, San Diego. “This one is much more of a transparently political move.”

And the environmental benefits of biofuels are undercut by the way they push up prices for corn and food, some energy experts argue.

Corn state lawmakers and industry leaders have been urging Mr. Biden to fill the gap created by the United States ban on Russian oil exports with biofuels. Emily Skor, CEO of the biofuel trade association group Growth Energy, called the decision “a major win” for energy security.

“These are tough choices and I don’t think it’s anything they relish,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, the senior vice president for government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, a nonprofit group. “I do believe they are working to do it in a way that does not lock in decades more fossil fuel infrastructure or pollution, and I think they remain determined as ever to meet the moment on climate.”

Anushka Patil
April 12, 2022, 7:14 p.m. ET

President Biden stood by his description of Russia’s actions as "genocide," telling reporters: “It’s become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be a Ukrainian.” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has consistently used the term, on Twitter praised Mr. Biden's remarks and reiterated a call for more weapons.

Anushka Patil
April 12, 2022, 5:54 p.m. ET

President Biden obliquely described Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “genocide,” apparently for the first time, during a domestic speech on rising gas prices. “Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should on hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away,” he said. (Earlier this month, Biden was asked if he thought the images of atrocities that emerged from Bucha, a Kyiv suburb, indicated genocide. "No," Biden answered, "I think it is a war crime.")

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Credit...Cheriss May for The New York Times

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Zolan Kanno-Youngs
April 12, 2022, 5:52 p.m. ET

Reporting from Washington

The White House is expected this week to announce $750 million in military assistance for Ukraine to use against Russian forces, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the preliminary plans. It is not clear what weapons will be included in the package.

Elian Peltier
April 12, 2022, 5:28 p.m. ET

After finding many doors open in the West, Zelensky seeks to address Africa.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky delivering a virtual address to the U.S. Congress in March.Credit... Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

From the U.S. Congress to Japan’s Parliament and several national assemblies in Europe, President Volodymyr Zelensky has found many open doors in his quest to gather more support for Ukraine in the face of the war in his country.

But across Africa, Mr. Zelensky has so far had a much less welcome reception. On Monday, he formally requested the opportunity to address the African Union, according to the current chairman of the organization, President Macky Sall of Senegal. Mr. Sall said on Twitter that he had “noted” the request.

The two leaders discussed the economic impact of the war in Ukraine on a call, Mr. Sall said, and “the need to favor dialogue for a negotiated outcome to the conflict.”

In contrast to the unifying effect the war has had among the European Union, the United States and other nations, many African countries remain divided over the war in Ukraine. Many of them have strong trade partnerships and an affinity with Russia stretching back to the Cold War, and Russia is Africa’s largest arms dealer.

African Union members called in February for the respect of Ukraine’s “territorial integrity and national sovereignty” in a statement that fell short of condemning the Russian invasion.

More than a third of the 24 countries that voted against the suspension of Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council last week were in Africa. Thirty-five countries on the continent either abstained or did not vote, including Angola, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa.

African countries are already bearing costs from the war in Ukraine; normally, more than 40 percent of the continent’s wheat imports originate in Russia and Ukraine. In North Africa, the war has strained economies that are critically dependent on such imports and were already weakened by the pandemic, and in East Africa the conflict is compounding a food crisis caused in part by a devastating drought.

The war is also deepening a food crisis in West Africa, where more than 40 million people are at imminent risk of famine this year, according to the World Food Program.

Kate Conger
April 12, 2022, 5:11 p.m. ET

Ukraine says it thwarted a sophisticated Russian cyberattack on its power grid.

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Officials said that if the breach had been successful, it would have deprived roughly two million people of electricity and made it difficult to restore power.Credit...Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that they had thwarted a Russian cyberattack on Ukraine’s power grid that could have knocked out power to two million people, raising fears that Moscow will increase its use of digital weapons in a country already pummeled by war.

Ukraine’s power grid has been knocked offline twice before, in 2015 and 2016, causing widespread blackouts. Russia has long used online attacks alongside traditional warfare; just days before the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, Ukraine said a cyberattack hit its Defense Ministry, its army and two of its banks.

But experts said the latest hacking — while unsuccessful — was among the most sophisticated cyberattacks they have seen in the war so far. It used a complex chain of malware, including some custom-built to control utility systems, suggesting that Russia had planned the attack over several weeks and intended to maximize the damage by sabotaging computer systems that would be needed to restore the electrical grid.

The attack was scheduled to begin on the evening of April 8 as civilians returned home from work, Ukrainian officials said, and could have made it impossible for them to go about their daily lives or gain access to information about the war. The breach targeted several electrical substations in the country, and had it been successful, it would have deprived roughly two million people of electricity and made it difficult to restore power.

In recent weeks, American officials have warned that Russia could try to expand its cyberwarfare — perhaps even by disrupting American pipelines and electric grids in retaliation for the sanctions that the United States has imposed on Moscow.

Hackers affiliated with the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence unit, were responsible for the attack, using malware similar to that deployed in the 2016 breach that plunged at least 100,000 people into darkness, Ukraine’s security and intelligence service said. That unusual malware can take over industrial control systems, essentially switching off the lights, and is rarely used. Cybersecurity researchers have not detected similar malware on computer systems outside the 2016 attack, which was attributed to the G.R.U.

“This is yet more evidence of Russia’s capability,” said John Hultquist, a vice president for threat analysis at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant. “The question is intent. Do they intend to do this outside of Ukraine?”

The hackers customized a version of the 2016 malware for the attack last week on the Ukrainian electrical company and also deployed so-called wiper malware, which is designed to erase data, on its computer systems in an apparent attempt to make it more difficult for the utility to restore service after a blackout began.

“Trying to cut the power is definitely something very significant,” said Jean-Ian Boutin, the director of threat research at the cybersecurity firm ESET, which helped Ukraine analyze the malware. “The fact that they have tools that allow them to do that is very concerning for the future, as well.”

The attackers may have broken into the electrical company’s systems as early as February, Ukrainian officials said, but they emphasized that some details of the attack, including how the intruders made their way into the company’s systems, were not yet known.

Officials declined to name the company that suffered the breach and the region its substations are in, citing fears of continuing cyberattacks.

“It is self-evident that the aggressor’s team, the malefactors, had enough time to get prepared very thoroughly and they planned the execution on a sophisticated, high-quality level,” said Victor Zhora, the deputy head of Ukraine’s cybersecurity agency, the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection. “It looks that we have been very lucky that we were able to respond in a timely manner to this cyberattack.”

Ukrainian companies in finance, media and energy have been subject to regular cyberattacks since the war began, according to Mr. Zhora. His agency said that since Russia’s invasion began, it had recorded three times as many attacks as it had tracked in the previous year.

The use of wiper malware has become a persistent problem in Ukraine since the war began, with attacks hitting Ukrainian critical infrastructure, including government agencies responsible for food safety, finance and law enforcement, cybersecurity researchers said.

Hackers have also broken into communications systems, including satellite communication services and telecom companies. Investigations into those breaches are continuing, although cybersecurity analysts and U.S. officials believe Russia is responsible. Other hacking groups, including one affiliated with Belarus, have broken into media companies’ systems and social media accounts of high-profile military officials, trying to spread disinformation that claimed Ukraine planned to surrender.

“They are targeting critical infrastructure; however, these attempts were not so sophisticated as compared to today’s recent attack,” Mr. Zhora said of the recent hacking campaigns against Ukrainian companies.

The Justice Department said last week that it had disrupted another cyberattack orchestrated by the G.R.U. Russian hackers had infected networks of private computers with malicious software to create a botnet that could have been used for surveillance or destructive attacks, the department said.

But the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation disconnected the networks from the G.R.U.’s own controllers before the botnet could be used in an attack. Using court orders, the F.B.I. gained access to corporate networks in the United States and removed the malware, sometimes without the company’s knowledge, U.S. officials said.

Some analysts believed that Russia would back up its ground invasion with crippling cyberattacks and were puzzled when widespread hacking campaigns did not materialize during the early days of the war. But cybersecurity experts said the complex attack on the electrical company was a sign that Russia was beginning to shift its tactics.

“We see a shift in what’s going on, on the ground, and we see a shift in what’s going on in the cyberrealm as well,” Mr. Boutin said. As Russia reorganizes its troops in Ukraine, it may also begin a new cybercampaign, he added.

“If the Russian advance has dissipated,” Mr. Hultquist said, “this may be another way for them to put pressure on Ukraine.”

Vivek Shankar contributed reporting.

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Carlotta GallAnton Troianovski
April 12, 2022, 5:09 p.m. ET

Ukraine says a political ally of Putin has been detained in a ‘special operation.’

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Viktor Medvedchuk in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, last year.Credit...Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Ukraine’s security service said on Tuesday that officers had detained Viktor Medvedchuk, a politician and oligarch seen as the Kremlin’s main agent of influence in Ukraine in recent years.

Mr. Medvedchuk disappeared shortly after the start of the war and the Ukrainian authorities were searching for him.

Ivan Bakanov, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, said on Facebook that officers had conducted a “lightning-fast and dangerous multilevel special operation” to detain Mr. Medvedchuk.

Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said he could not confirm that Mr. Medvedchuk had been arrested, according to Russian state media. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine posted a photo on Telegram that appeared to show Mr. Medvedchuk in handcuffs.

Mr. Medvedchuk’s arrest would be a significant blow to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who is reported to be the godfather to Mr. Medvedchuk’s daughter and counts him as one of his closest allies in Ukraine.

A longtime influential player in politics and business between Ukraine and Russia, he was an adviser in the office of President Leonid Kuchma after Ukraine’s independence and took part in negotiations with separatists in eastern Ukraine after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Before the war, Mr. Medvedchuk had been under house arrest on suspicion of treason, attempted looting of national resources and aiding and abetting a terrorist organization, according to local media.

A Ukrainian official, Mykhailo Podolyak, a member of Ukraine’s delegation for peace talks in Istanbul, said on Twitter that Mr. Medvedchuk had “regularly lied about the situation” in Ukraine, and “stole money and eventually became one of the initiators of the war.”

Oleksandr Chubko contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Carlotta GallDaniel Berehulak
April 12, 2022, 5:02 p.m. ET

Carlotta Gall and

Evidence belies Putin’s claim that Bucha atrocities are ‘fake.’

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Multiple bodies of civilians, who authorities say were killed by Russian forces, were found in a communal grave outside St. Andrew’s Church in Bucha, Ukraine.
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Halina Feoktistova showed the passport of her son, Volodymyr Feoktistov, 50, who was shot dead on March 4 by Russian soldiers.
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Ms. Feoktistova by the grave near St. Andrew’s Church on Friday, mourning her son.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Tuesday called the evidence of Russian atrocities in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha “fake,” denying the accounts, details and images uncovered by journalists and other investigators since Russian forces left the region.

The evidence gathered from local officials and scores of witnesses in Bucha shows execution-style murders of civilians and suggests Russian soldiers killed recklessly and sometimes sadistically.

Mr. Putin spoke in a news conference alongside the president of Belarus at a spaceport in Russia’s Far East. Asked about the atrocities in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Mr. Putin did not offer evidence or give details on what he called an orchestrated “provocation.”

Earlier in the news conference, Mr. Lukashenko offered his own version, claiming, without providing evidence, that British operatives had organized the killings. “We discussed in detail this psychological special operation that the English carried out,” Mr. Lukashenko said, referring to Bucha.

Journalists from The New York Times have visited Bucha, documenting dozens of killings of civilians and interviewing scores of witnesses to uncover the scale of Russian atrocities.

As the Russian advance on Kyiv stalled in the face of fierce resistance, civilians said, the enemy occupation of Bucha slid into a campaign of terror and revenge. When a defeated and demoralized Russian Army finally retreated, it left behind dead civilians strewn on streets, in basements or in backyards. Many had gunshot wounds to their heads, and some had their hands tied behind their backs.

Reporters and photographers for The New York Times spent more than a week with city officials, coroners and scores of witnesses in Bucha, uncovering new details of execution-style killings.

The Times documented the bodies of almost three dozen people where they were killed — in their homes, in the woods, set on fire in a vacant parking lot — and learned the story behind many of their deaths. The Times also witnessed more than 100 body bags at a communal grave and the city’s cemetery.

Unsuspecting civilians were killed carrying out the simplest of daily activities. A retired teacher known as Auntie Lyuda was shot on March 5 as she opened her front door on a small side street.

Her younger sister Nina, who was mentally disabled and lived with her, was dead on the kitchen floor. It was not clear how she died. “They took the territory and were shooting so no one would approach,” a neighbor, Serhiy, said. “Why would you kill a grandma?”

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Jane Arraf
April 12, 2022, 4:44 p.m. ET

Kherson’s mayor fears a ‘catastrophe’ at prisons holding inmates affiliated with pro-Russia separatists.

Four prisons in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson in southern Ukraine are running out of food for inmates, the city’s mayor said on Tuesday, adding that he feared that unpaid guards could walk off the job and that inmates affiliated with pro-Russian separatist groups could be freed by Russian forces.

Since the Russian takeover of the city in early March, Ukraine’s treasury has blocked funds for public services to keep the money out of the hands of the Russian military, resulting in a situation that the mayor, Igor Kolykhaiev, described as “impossible.”

Mr. Kolykhaiev said in a telephone interview from Kherson — the first major city to be occupied after Russia invaded in late February — that it would be difficult to keep utilities including water, electricity and public transportation running without access to the blocked funds.

“We are not allowed to receive payments for food supplies or for salaries,” he said. “This will be a catastrophe.”

The mayor said that the prisons included one facility for prisoners with tuberculosis, a highly contagious disease, and that the prison population included inmates affiliated with pro-Russian separatist organizations from the eastern region of Donetsk.

The mayor, who said the situation had left him “screaming in internal pain,” said that the Ukrainian flag still flew above City Hall, but that Russian forces had taken over the security services, interior ministry functions, the marine academy and regional administration offices.

Earlier Tuesday, Mr. Kolykhaiev took the unusual step of appealing to the Ukrainian government through the news media to plead for access to the city’s funds that it had frozen. “If anyone can hear me, please make sure the payments go through,” he told a media briefing by video link from his occupied city.

Mr. Kolykhaiev, a former member of Parliament, said that food was available in Khersen, but that prices had risen by up to 80 percent, and medicines were in short supply. He said that Russian soldiers were looting homes in villages surrounding the city, taking almost everything they could, including electrical appliances.

The mayor said that about 60,000 people had left the city and that more were following, but that about 230,000 residents remained. He said while Russian forces were allowing residents to leave, they had blocked humanitarian supplies from entering.

If salaries and payments remain frozen, Mr. Kolykhaiev said, he fears that more people will leave and that looting will spread throughout the city.

Vivek Shankar
April 12, 2022, 4:16 p.m. ET

President Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain discussed Johnson’s recent trip to Ukraine. The leaders talked about providing security and aid to Ukraine, the White House said in a statement. They agreed to continue their efforts to increase economic pressure on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and “decisively end Western reliance on Russian oil and gas,” Johnson’s office said separately.

Michael Crowley
April 12, 2022, 3:43 p.m. ET

A U.S. report describing a global retreat on human rights and democracy singles out Russia.

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A group of protesters clashed with the police in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2021.Credit...Dmitri Lovetsky/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Tuesday that governments around the world, including in Russia and China, grew more repressive last year, as the State Department released its annual report on global human rights.

The department’s 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices echoes President Biden’s warnings that authoritarianism is on the rise worldwide. Its introduction cites “continued democratic backsliding on several continents, and creeping authoritarianism that threatens both human rights and democracy — most notably, at present, with Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.”

The report covers the past year and thus does not include details about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. But it singled out Russia’s government as a leading rights abuser, citing reports of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, physical abuse of suspects by the police and other offenses, along with frequent impunity for accused security officials.

Among the trends Mr. Blinken highlighted was the increasingly brazen way governments were “reaching across borders to threaten and attack critics.” He described a plot to kidnap a journalist in New York that prosecutors said was orchestrated by an intelligence network in Iran, and the Belarusian government’s decision to force a Ryanair passenger flight to land so that security forces could arrest a journalist on board.

Some governments were also quick to lock up critics at home, Mr. Blinken said, listing Cuba, Egypt and Russia. More than one million political prisoners are being held in 65 countries, the report found.

China’s government “continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity” against ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang and has cracked down on basic freedoms in Hong Kong, Mr. Blinken said.

One nation that saw a serious turn for the worse was Afghanistan, whose U.S.-backed government collapsed after Mr. Biden withdrew American forces from the country in August. Mr. Blinken described “a serious erosion of human rights,” including arbitrary detentions of women, protesters and journalists; reprisals against the former government’s security forces; and restrictions on the freedom of women and girls to work and study.

But the report also noted that Afghanistan’s “pre-Aug. 15 government,” led by President Ashraf Ghani, was far from an exemplary model. “Widespread disregard for the rule of law and official impunity for those responsible for human rights abuses were common,” it found — a reality that helped the Taliban maintain popular support as they battled back to power.

The report included a long list of rights violations in Saudi Arabia, America’s longtime oil-rich authoritarian partner. Among them were “serious abuses” in the conflict in neighboring Yemen, including “civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure as a result of airstrikes.”

But in an echo of Saudi protestations about the rationale for the kingdom’s military campaign in Yemen, the report noted that attacks by Houthi militants in Yemen had “caused civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure” in Saudi Arabia.

One positive sign amid the bleak landscape, Mr. Blinken said, was the successful U.S.-led effort last week to suspend Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council.

“A country that’s perpetrating gross and systemic violations of human rights shouldn’t sit on a body whose job it is to protect those rights,” he said.

Mr. Blinken also urged the Senate to confirm Sarah Margon, Mr. Biden’s nominee to be the State Department’s top official for human rights. Ms. Margon, a former official at Human Rights Watch, was nominated nearly a year ago to be the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.

Although she appeared for a confirmation hearing in September, her nomination remains stalled. The top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, has criticized Ms. Margon for past tweets he depicted as unduly critical of Israel.

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Megan Specia
April 12, 2022, 3:14 p.m. ET

Russian forces take photojournalists into the destroyed Mariupol theater where hundreds were believed killed.

Russian soldiers allowed news photographers to accompany them as they patrolled the ruins of a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed last month in a Russian airstrike. The people were using the theater as a bomb shelter. Credit...Photographs by Alexander Nemenov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Russian soldiers took independent photographers through the ruins of a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed in mid-March, when it was destroyed by a Russian airstrike.

The outing was organized by Russian forces, who let the photojournalists take pictures on Tuesday as the soldiers toured the theater in central Mariupol, walking up the once grand staircase in the center of the building. The photos provide one of the clearest depictions yet of the destruction of the building, which had horrified the international community.

Hundreds of people were using the theater as a bomb shelter when it was destroyed on March 16. The word “children” had been written in Russian on the pavement outside in large white letters, as seen on satellite images taken in the days before the strike, to signal that children were among those sheltering inside.

It is still not clear how many people were in the theater’s basement when the building was destroyed, but city officials estimate around 300 people died. At least 130 survived after being pulled from the rubble.

In the weeks since the strike, survivors have recalled the horror of that day. One family that survived the bombing of the theater described to The New York Times how they had sheltered in the basement of the building for days before the airstrike. Then the walls fell in around them.

The city of Mariupol has been under bombardment by Russian forces since the start of the war. It is a strategically important port on the Sea of Azov, located between Russian-held regions in the east and Russian-annexed Crimea to its southwest.

In recent days, Russian troops appear to have made significant gains in the center of the city, where the theater is, military analysts say. But Ukrainian forces say they are still holding other neighborhoods.

On Tuesday, Pytor Andryushchenko, an adviser to the city government, said it was difficult for officials to get a clear grasp of the number of civilians killed during the siege. For several weeks, Mariupol officials have been forced to base themselves in Zaporizhzhia, a city 140 miles to the northwest.

“We think now that in Mariupol, a minimum of 10,000 people have died,” he said, adding that the number is “likely much higher.”

But, he added, because of the volatile situation in the country, officials have yet to be able to do a count.

The living conditions for residents still trapped in the city have grown more dire every day, Mr. Andryushchenko said.

The last functioning hospital was evacuated last week, and the doctors and staff were taken into Russian-controlled territory, raising concerns for the sick and wounded in Mariupol, he said. Covid is still rampant in the city, and other illnesses are spreading because of the difficult living conditions.

“Our people are in a very dangerous situation, many people are ill, are cold in basements and can’t get any medical help,” he said.

Anton Troianovski
April 12, 2022, 3:04 p.m. ET

Reporting from Istanbul

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine posted a photo on Telegram that appeared to show Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russia Ukrainian politician and oligarch, in handcuffs, saying Ukrainian intelligence had carried out a “special operation.” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said he could not confirm that Mr. Medvedchuk had in fact been arrested, according to Russian state media. Mr. Medvedchuk’s arrest would be a significant blow to Vladimir V. Putin, who is reported to be the godfather to Mr. Medvedchuk’s daughter and counts Mr. Medvedchuk as one of his closest allies in Ukraine.

Michael Crowley
April 12, 2022, 2:48 p.m. ET

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters at the State Department that the United States could not confirm allegations of a chemical attack in Ukraine. But he said that the U.S. possessed “credible information that Russian forces may use a variety of riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents that would cause stronger symptoms, to weaken and incapacitate entrenched Ukrainian fighters and civilians as part of the aggressive campaign to take Mariupol.”

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Alan Rappeport
April 12, 2022, 2:42 p.m. ET

The World Bank is preparing to deliver $1.5 billion in aid to Ukraine.

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David R. Malpass, the World Bank president, said Tuesday that the bank had approved $1.5 billion in aid to Ukraine.Credit...Yves Herman/Reuters

The World Bank is preparing to deliver $1.5 billion in aid to Ukraine to help the country maintain government operations amid Russia’s offensive, David R. Malpass, the World Bank president, said on Tuesday.

The funds were approved this week by the International Development Association, the arm of the World Bank that provides grants and loans to the world’s poorest countries. The bank has also been working to provide aid to hospital workers and the elderly in Ukraine and to support refugees. It has committed to helping Ukraine rebuild after the war.

“The World Bank was created in 1944 to help Europe rebuild after World War II,” Mr. Malpass said during a speech at the Warsaw School of Economics in Poland. “As we did then, we will be ready to help Ukraine with reconstruction when the time comes.”

The World Bank has already started to disburse nearly $1 billion of aid that was previously approved. The additional $1.5 billion will need final approval in the coming weeks from the bank’s board of directors, a World Bank spokeswoman said.

The comments came ahead of the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington next week.

Mr. Malpass said the war in Ukraine had darkened the outlook for the global economy, which had already been coping with high inflation and disrupted supply chains because of the pandemic.

“We are again living through a dangerous period of overlapping crises and conflicts,” Mr. Malpass said.

He lamented that real median incomes were stagnant around the world and that poverty was projected to increase this year because of inflation, currency depreciation and high food prices. Developing countries, he said, are bearing the brunt of the economic pain because of their limited fiscal resources.

Julian E. Barnes
April 12, 2022, 2:20 p.m. ET

The Pentagon will meet with major military contractors to plan aid for Ukraine.

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Empty cases of American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles near the front lines outside Kyiv, Ukraine, last month.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

A top U.S. defense official said on Tuesday that the Pentagon would convene a classified meeting with the leaders of the biggest American military contractors on Wednesday to discuss stepped-up assistance to Ukraine, including ways improve air defenses, anti-ship missiles and weapons to find and destroy Russian artillery.

Washington’s $1.7 billion in assistance to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion, including the provision of thousands of Stingers and Javelin missiles, has forced American military contractors to step up production of older weapons systems, both for Ukraine’s need and to replenish the United States military’s stocks.

The Pentagon is now examining what additional longer-range weapons to supply to Ukraine, as well as making sure that the government in Kyiv receives basics it needs, like additional artillery shells. U.S. military officials want American military contractors to begin work on supplying Ukraine for a possible long conflict with Russia.

The meeting on Wednesday, announced by Kathleen H. Hicks, the deputy secretary of defense, will include leaders of eight large military contractors, such as Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation. The meeting will discuss how to overcome any potential supply problems — both to replenish American weapons stocks that have been drawn down to help Ukraine and to keep Kyiv supplied as the war continues.

The Pentagon is working with the American companies to identify which of them has the right military capabilities for Ukraine and can “move expeditiously to get it in there,” Ms. Hicks said.

“What can we do to help them?” she told reporters at a meeting of the Defense Writers Group. “What do they need to generate supply?”

Ms. Hicks did not discuss specific weapon systems that the United States would supply. But other defense officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the agenda of the classified meeting, said the discussions would focus on weaponry in five areas.

Improving Ukraine’s air defenses and its ability to shoot down Russian aircraft is one of Kyiv’s most urgent concerns. In addition, the United States is looking at how to improve Ukraine’s coastal defenses, such as with missiles that can be fired at Russian ships, and Ukraine’s supply of anti-personnel weapons, like Claymore mines and other weapons used to kill enemy infantry. The Pentagon also wants contractors to examine demining equipment and counter-battery technology, radar that can track and locate enemy artillery, that Ukraine could use.

Ms. Hicks said U.S. officials were in a “continual dialogue” with Ukraine and American allies about how best to provide the equipment that Ukraine had requested. Ms. Hicks said some of the most important supplies it needs are the basics: artillery rounds and other forms of ammunition.

But she added that the United States would continue to look at other capabilities the Ukrainians have requested “to give them a little more range and distance.”

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Neil MacFarquhar
April 12, 2022, 2:10 p.m. ET

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition activist and vocal Kremlin critic, was sentenced to 15 days in jail on charges of evading the police near his home, his lawyer said. The activist was detained near his home on Monday and held in a central Moscow police station without access to his lawyer, his wife said in an email. His lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, who announced the sentence on Facebook, said he would appeal.

Thomas Gibbons-NeffNatalia Yermak
April 12, 2022, 1:49 p.m. ET

Thomas Gibbons-Neff and

A Kharkiv area had avoided the worst of the shelling. That changed on Tuesday.

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An electrician killed by a Russian cluster bomb on Tuesday in the Kharkiv suburb of Babai lays on the doorstep of the house where he had been working. The woman who owns the house looks on. Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

BABAI, Ukraine — A trip up Flower Street on Tuesday afternoon: The yellow house was on fire, the brown house had shattered glass in its driveway, and at the brick house, an electrician working outside had bled to death on the doorstep.

For 46 days, this affluent neighborhood in Babai, a small town outside the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, had avoided the shellings so common on its periphery since the Russian invasion began. Most residents there had seemed unperturbed over the last several days, listening as the thuds and crumps got closer.

But around 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, their luck ran out. A Russian cluster munition dispensed its explosives up and down Flower Street, leaving a trail of craters, punctured roofs and casualties. One shredded the side of an aging tan sedan. Another peeled back a fence.

The explosive that killed the electrician appeared to have hit him as he was working on a street-side power pylon outside No. 12.

Two other people in the neighborhood were wounded during the attack, as was one woman’s dog, Glasha.

“Those who were on the street got hurt,” said Elena, 56, Glasha’s owner, who has lived on Flower Street for at least 22 years and declined to provide her last name. “Those who were inside came out in one piece.”

As Moscow shifts its war aims to the Donbas region, a swath of territory the size of New Hampshire in Ukraine’s east, its forces have continued to unrelentingly shell Kharkiv, once Ukraine’s second largest city, despite any hopes of ever seizing the sprawling urban center.

Roughly 1,800 civilians across Ukraine have been killed and 2,490 have been injured since the start of Russia’s invasion, according to United Nations data.

Vivek Shankar
April 12, 2022, 1:22 p.m. ET

Ukraine says it stopped a Russian cyberattack on a power grid.

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A power plant in eastern Ukraine before the start of the war. Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that a cyberattack on the country’s power grid had been thwarted days earlier.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that they had foiled an attack on a power company by a hacking unit with links to Russia’s largest military intelligence agency, an attempt that a cybersecurity company said aimed to cut power with a new version of malware used to do so in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, eight years ago.

Attacks on Ukraine’s power grid have been successful at least twice before — with a hack in 2015 leaving more than 225,000 people without power — and online attacks are increasingly used alongside traditional warfare. Just days before the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, Ukraine said it had suffered its biggest cyberattack, against its Defense Ministry, army and two big banks.

Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team said in a statement that hackers had planned on Friday to switch off some substations. It did not identify the targets or say how officials had stopped the attack. But the Ukrainians accused Sandworm, a Russian hacking unit that has been linked to the G.R.U., a Russian military agency, of being behind the attempt.

The attack on the power company came in two steps, according to the statement: First, the hackers infiltrated computers in February or earlier; then, on Friday, they tried to schedule a power shut-off. Ukrainian investigators said in the statement that they had worked with Microsoft and ESET, a Slovak cybersecurity company.

Ukrainian officials contacted ESET on Friday, Jean-Ian Boutin, the company’s director of threat research, said in an email. The company then analyzed samples provided by the Ukrainian team and relayed its analysis, he said.

ESET said on its website that it had “high confidence” that Sandworm was responsible for the attack. It said the group had targeted high-voltage substations using a new version of malware that Sandworm used to cut power in Kyiv in 2016.

The Slovak company said the hackers had also tried to deploy a malware that was used against a Ukrainian bank. It said investigators did not know how the hackers had gained access to the power company’s substations.

Microsoft declined to comment on the specific hacking attempt. The company instead shared a blog post from Thursday in which it detailed how it had helped stop attacks in Ukraine by Strontium, another group linked to the G.R.U.

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Erika Solomon
April 12, 2022, 12:14 p.m. ET

Ukraine rejected a visit from Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier — a snub in response to his longtime ties to high-level Moscow officials and gas projects. “I must acknowledge this was not wanted in Kyiv,” said Mr. Steinmeier, who was due to be part of a visit to Kyiv this week alongside his Polish and Baltic counterparts. He apologized last week for what he described as “mistakes” in Germany’s Russia policy.

Alex Marshall
April 12, 2022, 12:06 p.m. ET

France seizes a Russian oligarch’s painting because of E.U. sanctions.

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Pyotr Konchalovsky’s “Self-Portrait” (1912) “will remain in France as long as its owner, a Russian oligarch, remains subject to an asset freeze,” a French government spokesman said.Credit...Succession Kontchalovski Piotr

A painting owned by a Russian oligarch that was seen by over 1.2 million people who visited a blockbuster art show in Paris will not be returning to Russia for the foreseeable future, a spokesman for France’s culture ministry said on Monday.

The 1912 artwork, “Self-Portrait,” by the Russian avant-garde painter Pyotr Konchalovsky, is owned by Petr Aven, a director of one of Russia’s largest banks. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Mr. Aven became one of the first Russian businessmen to fall under European Union sanctions.

A spokesman for France’s culture ministry said in an email that the painting, whose seizure was first reported by French newspapers on Saturday, “will remain in France as long as its owner, a Russian oligarch, remains subject to an asset freeze.” Another painting — “Portrait of Timofei Savvich Morozov” (1891), by Valentin Serov — may also be kept in France because it is also connected to an oligarch, the ministry said.

The Serov painting is owned by the Museum of Avant‑Garde Mastery, the name for a collection of artworks belonging to Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor. Mr. Kantor is the largest shareholder of a Russian fertilizer company and is subject to European and British sanctions.

The spokesman declined to say where the works were being held, “for obvious security reasons.”

Until Apr. 3, the two paintings had been on display at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris as part of “The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art,” a huge exhibition of works that once belonged to the Russian textile magnates Ivan and Mikhail Morozov. Their collection, which includes works by Gauguin, Van Gogh and Picasso, was expropriated about a century ago, after the October Revolution, and became state property.

Most of the paintings in the show came from Russian state museums, including the State Hermitage Museum, in St. Petersburg, and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, in Moscow. Under a 1994 French law designed to encourage international art loans, those works cannot be seized by French authorities, because they were lent by a foreign government, said Freda Matassa, an art consultant who has helped develop a similar anti-seizure law in Britain.

But, Ms. Matassa said, the French law does not apply to works owned by private individuals.

Representatives of Mr. Aven and the Museum of Avant-Garde Mastery did not respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for the Louis Vuitton Foundation said it would not comment, either.

Even before the seizures, some art shipment firms expected “Morozov Collection” works to experience difficulties returning to Russia, because the war in Ukraine has interrupted traditional routes for air and road freight. The most direct route into Russia from Western Europe is now via Finland, yet last week, Finnish customs officials impounded three shipments of fine art at the border between the two countries, suspecting that the cargo breached European Union sanctions. The works were swiftly released when it became apparent they fell outside the sanctions’ scope.

The French culture ministry said it was also keeping a third painting from “The Morozov Collection” in Paris for safety reasons. That work, “Portrait of Margarita Kirillovna Morozova” (1910), by Serov, belongs to the Dnipropetrovsk Art Museum, in the eastern Ukraine city of Dnipro, which is expected to soon be the subject of a Russian assault. Ukrainian authorities requested the painting remain in Paris until it is safe for it to be returned, the culture ministry spokesman said.

The seizure of the Konchalovsky painting is not the first time Mr. Aven’s connections to the art world have made news since Russia’s invasion began. Just days after the war started, Mr. Aven stepped down as a trustee at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, one of the city’s oldest art museums. The academy also announced it would be returning the money he paid to sponsor a major exhibition of Francis Bacon paintings.

Mr. Aven told the Financial Times last month that the sanctions against him were without merit. “If the court decides you are corrupt, there is dirty money, absolutely understandable,” he said. “But this, I just don’t understand.”

Anton Troianovski
April 12, 2022, 12:03 p.m. ET

Reporting from Istanbul

Putin says peace talks are at ‘a dead end’ and calls atrocities in Bucha ‘fake.’

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As Russian forces withdrew from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, they left scores of civilian bodies in their wake. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called the atrocities “fake” on Tuesday.Credit...Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Tuesday that peace talks with Ukraine had reached a “dead end” and called the evidence of Russian atrocities in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha “fake,” using his first extended remarks about the war in nearly a month to insist that Russia would persist with its invasion.

Speaking at a news conference at a spaceport in Russia’s Far East, Mr. Putin said that Ukraine had changed its position after the round of peace talks held in Istanbul on March 29 to one that was no longer acceptable to the Kremlin. While there were indications that Ukraine had this week again adopted a more constructive stance, he said, Russia’s “military operation will continue until its full completion” and its goals are met.

Those goals, he said, centered on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian and Western officials expect that Russia will soon mount an intense offensive.

While Russia’s initial offensive is widely seen as a failure because its forces failed to take Kyiv and had to retreat, Mr. Putin insisted on Tuesday — as he did in the first weeks of the war — that what he calls the “special military operation” was going “according to plan.”

“We will act rhythmically and calmly, according to the plan that was initially proposed by the general staff,” Mr. Putin said. “Our goal is to help the people who live in the Donbas, who feel their unbreakable bond with Russia.”

He said repeatedly that Russia had no choice but to invade Ukraine because a clash with Western-trained “neo-Nazis” in that country was inevitable.

“What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy,” Mr. Putin said in a news conference after a meeting at the spaceport with President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, his closest international ally. “They just didn’t leave us a choice. There was no choice.”

Tuesday’s news conference appeared to be geared in great part to reinforcing Mr. Putin’s support at home. Ever since he appeared before tens of thousands at a Moscow stadium on March 18, Mr. Putin’s public appearances have been limited to brief clips showing him meeting with government officials, mostly by video link, in which he did not comment on the peace talks or the war. Instead, he let his Defense Ministry and other officials do the talking.

Mr. Putin emerged from his cocoon on Monday for an off-camera meeting at his residence outside Moscow with Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria, a session that left Mr. Nehammer convinced that Mr. Putin was planning a “violent” assault on the Donbas.

On Tuesday, Mr. Putin arrived in the Amur Region of Russia’s Far East and was shown in video released by the Kremlin chatting informally with workers at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a sprawling new spaceport that has been plagued by construction delays and remains unfinished.

Mr. Putin told the workers that Russia would continue reinvigorating its space program, including plans to launch an unmanned mission to the moon scheduled for this year. The video appeared to be an effort to signal to television viewers that Russia’s economy could remain vibrant despite Western sanctions.

During the news conference, Mr. Putin said the Russian economy had withstood the initial shock of sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. He listed the ruble’s comeback, as well as the central bank’s decision to lower its key interest rate, as examples, saying that the world was too dependent on Russian food and energy exports to afford its complete isolation.

It was Western countries, he insisted, that would soon feel the political backlash from the economic pain wrought by the sanctions, as evidenced by rising prices for food and fuel. European countries, in particular, had shown yet again that they were acting as “poodles” of the United States, he said.

“They always miscalculate, not understanding that in difficult conditions, the Russian people always unite,” Mr. Putin said.

Asked about the atrocities in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Mr. Putin responded by talking about the bombing of the Syrian city of Raqqa by the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State, reprising his well-worn argument about “double standards” that he says have given the United States a pass on its own immoral actions.

“Dead bodies were really lying in the ruins for months and decomposing, and no one cared,” Mr. Putin said. “No one even noticed.”

As for Bucha, Mr. Putin said that the alleged atrocities were “fake,” though he did not offer evidence of his claim, nor did he give details on how what he called the “provocation” had been orchestrated. Earlier in the news conference, Mr. Lukashenko offered his own version, claiming, without providing evidence, that British operatives had organized the killings.

“We discussed in detail this psychological special operation that the English carried out,” Mr. Lukashenko said, referring to Bucha.

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