The United States “won’t let President [Vladimir] Putin impose his will on other nations,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday in Finland, where he delivered an address on Russia’s war in Ukraine. Blinken said the United States is committed to helping build Ukraine’s military strength and called for long-term investment.
“Let me say directly to the Russian people: The United States is not your enemy,” he said from the Finnish capital, Helsinki, as he was wrapping up a Nordic tour. “We cannot choose your future for you, and we won’t try to do so.”
In Ukraine, the army’s commander said air defenses shot down more than 30 missiles and drones in a new round of Russian air attacks overnight. Air raid sirens blared around the country early Friday, from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, to the Black Sea port of Odessa.
Here is the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
As Ukraine prepares to launch a long-trumpeted counterattack, the first obstacle isn’t Russia’s defenses but Ukraine’s. Like Russia, Ukraine has laid thousands of mines along the front line, Post journalists report from Zaporizhzhia. To advance, Ukrainian troops must now push through these lines without tipping off Russian forces — by sending sappers out to the fields to quietly clear paths through the mines.
With the Kremlin hellbent on keeping the land it has stolen in Zaporizhzhia, Russian forces have ripped it apart, transforming huge expanses of once-sleepy agricultural fields into a veritable fortress with webs of trenches and other obstacles that can be seen from space.
To retake territory and oust the Russians, the Ukrainians will have to punch through these fortifications.
Missy Ryan and Christian Shepherd contributed to this report.