A Ukrainian firefighter tries to extinguish a fire inside a house destroyed by shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. The Kyiv city administration says Russian forces shelled the Ukrainian capital overnight and early Wednesday morning, in the districts of Sviatoshynskyi and Shevchenkivskyi, damaging buildings. – Ukraine President Volodymr Zelenskyy called on people worldwide to gather in public Thursday to show support for his embattled country as he prepared to address U.S.
To keep up the pressure on Russia, Zelenskyy said he would ask in a video conference with NATO members that the alliance provide “effective and unrestricted” support to Ukraine, including any weapons the country needs. In its last update, Russia said March 2 that nearly 500 of its soldiers had been killed and almost 1,600 wounded. NATO estimates, however, that between 7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops have been killed — the latter figure about what Russia lost in a decade of fighting in Afghanistan.
A senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday that Russian ground forces appear to be digging in and setting up defensive positions 15 to 20 kilometers outside Kyiv, the capital, as they make little to no progress toward the city center. “The Russian Federation is capable of physically destroying any aggressor or any aggressor group within minutes at any distance,” said Rogozin, who heads the state aerospace corporation, Roscosmos, and oversees missile-building facilities. He noted in his televised remarks that Moscow’s nuclear stockpiles include tactical nuclear weapons, designed for use on battlefields, along with far more powerful nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.U.S.