“Instead of forgiveness there will be judgment,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video shared on the last Sunday before Lent.

Driving the news: “Today is Forgiveness Sunday. But we cannot forgive the hundreds and hundreds of victims. Nor the thousands and thousands of people who have suffered,” according to the latest video the leader posted on his Telegram account Sunday evening local time. “God will not forgive. Not today. Not tomorrow. Never.”

• “Today a family of four, parents and two children, were killed in Irpin as they tried to leave the city,” Zelensky said. “We will not forgive. We will not forget.”

The last: The outskirts of Kyiv, the second-largest city of Kharkiv, Chernihiv in the north and Mykolaiv in the south were shelled later in the day on Sunday local time, Zelensky adviser Oleksiy Arestovich told Ukrainian television.

• “The latest wave of missile strikes came as darkness fell,” Arestovich said.
• Sunday’s planned evacuation of civilians from the Ukrainian coastal city of Mariupol was called off for the second time after Ukrainian officials accused Russian forces of violating a limited ceasefire agreement, the New York reported. Times.

The International Atomic Energy Agency warned on Sunday that Russian forces had placed personnel at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant under their direct command and demanded that any action taken by the plant’s management be approved by the Russian commander beforehand.

• They have also taken steps to restrict staff’s ability to communicate with the outside world.

N0-fly calls increase: Zelensky in a video posted earlier sunday repeated his call for a no-fly zone over Ukraine: “If you don’t do that, if you don’t at least give us planes so that we can protect ourselves, there can only be only one conclusion: you want us to be slowly killed.”

• “We are people and it is your humanitarian duty to protect us,” he added.
• Western leaders have repeatedly ruled out imposing a no-fly zone, saying it would dramatically worsen the situation and threaten to drag NATO forces directly into a conventional war with a nuclear power.
• Russian separatist forces, meanwhile, have accused Ukraine of violating the ceasefire agreement, according to Reuters.

In the absence of a no-fly zone, the United States is exploring ways this can help facilitate the supply of fighter jets to Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

• A proposed deal that would have seen the EU’s former eastern bloc countries deliver Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine fell apart earlier this month.
• Putin said on Saturday that Moscow would consider any declaration of Ukraine as a no-fly zone as “participation in the armed conflict”.
• “This very second we will consider them participants in the military conflict, and it doesn’t matter which members they are,” Putin said.

The big picture: A third round of talks between Russia and Ukraine will take place on Monday, Ukraine’s chief negotiator announced on Facebook on Saturday.

• French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone for nearly two hours with Putin on Sunday, Reuters reported. The French president urged his Russian counterpart to guarantee the continued protection and security of Ukrainian nuclear sites.
• Ukraine will present its case to the International Criminal Court on Monday. Russia will have the opportunity to respond on Tuesday.
• ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said on March 2 that he would immediately open an investigation into allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide committed in Ukraine.

Blinken told CNN from Moldova on Sunday: “[W]We have seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians, which would constitute a war crime.”

• The secretary of state said he was documenting evidence to help support “appropriate organizations and institutions” investigating the case, such as the International Criminal Court.

Zoom out: President Biden’s advisers are discussing a possible visit to Saudi Arabia this spring to help mend relations and convince the Kingdom to pump more oil, Axios’ Hans Nichols has learned.

• The United States is also working with its European allies to explore the possibility of banning Russian oil imports, Blinken said during a Sunday appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
• The announcement comes as bipartisan momentum builds in Congress.

“The people of my state of West Virginia, I think it is fundamentally insane for us to continue buying products and giving profits and giving Putin money to use against the Ukrainian people,” Senator Joe Manchin (DW) said on Sunday. .va.) during an appearance on NBC Press.”

• “Why don’t we lead? Why don’t we show the determination that we have? I understand there’s more dependency in the world. But you know, here’s the thing, we have the ability to increase and to fill,” said the West Virginia Democrat who has co-sponsored legislation with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would rely on domestic drilling.

In addition to cutting off Russian imports, Manchin, in particular, has advocated for greater domestic oil and gas production to reduce the country’s dependence on other countries, according to Axios’ Andrew Freedman. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the oil and gas industry has been asking the administration to take certain measures to stimulate production.

• However, U.S. crude oil production is expected to hit a record high in 2023, despite the Biden administration’s policies to try to transition to a clean energy economy.
• Manchin plans to hold a hearing this week at the Senate Energy Committee, which he chairs, on the links between energy production and national security.

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