Biden, other G-7 leaders to meet Zelensky virtually today amid war: 10 points

US president Joe Biden, UK PM Boris Johnson and other G-7 leaders are set to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky via a video call on Sunday.

Ahead of the virtual meeting, the UK announced an aid of $1.3 billion in military assistance to the war-torn nation. “Putin’s brutal attack is not only causing untold devastation in Ukraine – it is also threatening peace and security across Europe,” Johnson was quoted as saying in reports. The new pledge doubles the UK’s commitment so far to the country since the war started on February 24.

Here are ten updates on the Ukraine war:

1. All women and children were evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in the besieged Mariupol port city, Kyiv said on Saturday. “Now we are preparing the second phase of the evacuation mission — the wounded and health-care workers,” reports quoted Zelensky as saying, adding that “though the second phase will be extremely difficult, we will not lose hope.”

2. According to Ukraine-based ‘The Kyiv Indepenent’, air raid alerts went off across the country – Donetsk, Khmelnytsky, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Vinnytsia, Volyn, Chernivtsi, Zakarpattia, Rivne, Lviv, Ternopil and Odessa oblasts. Overnight shelling by Russia was reported in the rebel-held Luhansk.

3. Ukraine on Saturday claimed it had destroyed another Russian ship. “Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 destroyed another Russian ship. This time the landing craft of the “Serna” project. The traditional parade of the Russian Black Sea fleet on May 9 this year will be held near Snake Island – at the bottom of the sea,” the country’s defence ministry tweeted.

4. Russia’s Vladimir Putin does not believe he can “afford to lose the war, and is doubling down, CIA chief Bill Burns was quoted as saying in reports. “I think he’s convinced right now that doubling down still will enable him to make progress,” adding that he was not showing signs of using tactical nuclear weapons.

5. The Russian Federation’s Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response has alleged mistreatment of civilians in Ukraine.

6. “We warn the “civilized West” as well as the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in advance that the above and other similar provocations about alleged “Russian atrocities” are soon to be widely spread by the Ukrainian authorities through the Western media and in various Internet resources,” a May 7 statement said.

7. A UN report has highlighted that “the impact of the war is particularly disproportionate for internally displaced people and marginalized groups such as female-headed households, Roma people, LGBTQIA+ people, and people with disabilities”.

8. UN’s world food programme on Friday stressed: “Right now, Ukraine’s grain silos are full. At the same time, 44 million people around the world are marching towards starvation. We have to open up these ports so that food can move in and out of Ukraine. The world demands it because hundreds of millions of people globally depend on these supplies,”

9. Earlier this week, UN chief Antonio Guterres had urged at the Security Council meeting that “the cycle of death, destruction, dislocation & disruption must stop.”

10. Millions have been forced out of their homes and thousands have died in ten weeks of war.