Ukraine President to press Biden, NATO for more support

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine President Volodymr Zelensky called on people worldwide to gather in public Thursday to show support for his embattled country as he prepared to address US President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders gathered in Brussels on the one-month anniversary of the Russian invasion.
“Come to your squares, your streets. Make yourselves visible and heard,” Zelensky said in English during an emotional video address late Wednesday that was recorded in the dark near the presidential offices in Kyiv. “Say that people matter. Freedom matters. Peace matters. Ukraine matters.”
Zelensky 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 to fend off the Russian onslaught.
Biden was expected to discuss new sanctions and how to coordinate such measures, along with more military aid for Ukraine, with NATO members, and then talk with leaders of the G7 industrialized nations and the European Council in a series of meetings on Thursday.
On the eve of a meeting with Biden, European Union nations signed off on another 500 million euros ($550 million) in military aid for Ukraine.
When Russia unleashed its invasion Feb. 24 in Europe’s biggest offensive since World War II, a swift toppling of Ukraine’s government seemed likely. But a month into the fighting, Moscow is bogged down in a grinding military campaign of attrition. In its last update, Russia said March 2 that nearly 500 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. – AP