EU agrees to $60 a barrel Russian oil price cap; Ukraine embassies receive ‘bloody packages’

Russian troops in Ukraine are deliberately attacking the country’s museums, libraries and other cultural institutions, according to a report issued Friday by the U.S. and Ukrainian chapters of the international writers’ organization PEN.

“Culture is not collateral damage in the war against Ukraine; it’s a target, a central pillar of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification for the war,” the report stated. “Putin has repeatedly claimed that Ukrainian culture and language simply don’t exist. By targeting art museums, music halls, libraries, theaters and historical sites, he attempts to make it so.”

PEN cited Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture as saying that 529 “cultural heritage and cultural institutions” have been destroyed or damaged since the war started on Feb. 24. The figure includes both sites of national importance and cultural venues in towns and villages, the report said.

The list includes one of the war’s most notorious incidents – the bombing in March of the main drama theater in the city of Mariupol, where hundreds of people were sheltering from the city’s siege. Some 600 people died in the attack, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Two large inscriptions reading “children” on the ground adjacent to the theater indicated that Russian forces knew civilians were inside and “it seems likely that the theater was targeted for its cultural significance,” the report said.

Russian attacks on Ukrainian culture and the language predate the start of the war and began in 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and supported separatist fighters in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces of eastern Ukraine, PEN said.

PEN Ukraine said it has documented 31 civilian writers, artists and other cultural workers killed in Russian attacks this year, and that some other cultural figures have died while fighting with Ukrainian forces.

— Associated Press

The organization overseeing the export of agricultural products from Ukraine said it has approved three vessels to leave the besieged country.

The Joint Coordination Center, an initiative of Ukraine, Russia, the United Nations and Turkey, said that the vessels are carrying a total of 106,500 metric tons of grain and other food products.

Two ships from Odesa are destined for China and Italy and are carrying corn. Another ship will depart from Ukraine’s Yuzhny-Pivdennyi port for Bulgaria and is carrying sunflower seeds.

— Amanda Macias

The U.S. Army awarded defense giant Lockheed Martin a $431 million contract for the production of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, M142 launchers.

“This award will enable us to replenish our own inventory while providing critical capabilities for our allies and international partners,” Douglas Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology, said in a release. “We remain committed to getting things on contract as quickly as possible to ensure our stocks are rapidly replenished.”

The HIMARS is designed to shoot a variety of missiles from a mobile 5-ton truck.

— Amanda Macias

With Ukraine scrambling to keep communication lines open during the war, an army of engineers from the country’s phone companies has mobilized to help the public and policymakers stay in touch during repeated Russian missile and drone strikes.

The engineers, who typically go unseen and unsung in peacetime, often work around the clock to maintain or restore phone service, sometimes braving minefields to do so. After Russian strikes took out the electricity that cellphone towers usually run on, they revved up generators to keep the towers on.

“I know our guys — my colleagues — are very exhausted, but they’re motivated by the fact that we are doing an important thing,” Yuriy Dugnist, an engineer with Ukrainian telecommunications company Kyivstar, said after crunching through a half-foot (15 centimeters) of fresh snow to reach a fenced-in mobile phone tower on the western fringe of Kyiv, the capital.

Dugrist and his co-workers offered a glimpse of their new daily routines, which involve using an app on their own phones to monitor which of the scores of phone towers in the capital area were receiving electricity, either during breaks from the controlled blackouts being used to conserve energy or from the generators that kick in to provide backup power.

— Associated Press

Four orphaned lion cubs that survived bombing and drone attacks in Ukraine arrived safely at The Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, Minn. this week.

Three female cubs, Stefania, Lesya and Prada, and a boy named Taras took a 36-hour journey from Ukraine to the Poznan Zoo in Poland where they spent about a month recovering and waiting for clearance to fly to the U.S.

The cubs then took a nine-hour flight from Warsaw, Poland to Chicago on Tuesday, arriving in the U.S. around noon. After clearing customs and making an 8-hour drive from Chicago, the cubs arrived after midnight at The Wildcat Sanctuary, according to Melanie Mahoney, a spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which partnered with the sanctuary on the rescue.

Three of the cubs — Taras, Stefania and Lesya — were reportedly found in a cardboard box at a train station in Odesa, Ukraine, according to rescue workers. The fourth cub, Prada, was surrendered in a cardboard box to a wild animal rescue group in Kyiv. The conditions of their surrenders are murky as they are believed to have been trafficked through the illegal exotic pet trade in Europe, Mahoney said.

“Nearly every species of big cat must overcome a growing list of threats to their wild existence, in particular, the increasing demand of the exotic pet trade,” said Meredith Whitney, Wildlife Rescue Program manager at the international fund. “We are working with the Big Cat Sanctuary Alliance and organizations like The Wildcat Sanctuary to stop the exploitation of big cats in the US and around the world.”

The sanctuary, which has cared for about 300 big cats, and the international fund worked with the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation, which found a company that could fly the cubs to the U.S. and helped pay for the flight.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pushed for Russian President Vladimir Putin to find a diplomatic solution to the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine as soon as possible, a German government spokesperson said in a statement.

During an hour-long conversation, Scholz was said to have condemned the Russian airstrikes against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and reaffirmed Berlin’s determination to support Kyiv in ensuring its defensive capability against Moscow.

Scholz’s spokesperson said the political leaders also discussed the “particularly tense” global food situation and agreed to stay in contact.

The Kremlin’s readout of the telephone call, meanwhile, said the discussion was held at the initiative of Germany and Putin “once again explained in detail” Russia’s approach to what it describes as its “special military operation.”

Putin was said to have drawn attention “to the destructive line of Western states, including Germany, pumping up the Kyiv regime with weapons, training the Ukrainian military.”

Russia’s leader was also said to have urged the German government to reconsider its approach to the Ukraine war.

— Sam Meredith

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Ukrainian embassies and consulates in multiple countries are receiving “bloody packages” — some with animal parts — as part of what appears to be a “well-planned campaign of terror and intimidation.”

Following a spate of explosive letters sent to locations throughout Spain in recent days, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that bloody packages arrived at embassies in Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Italy and Austria, as well as the consulates general in Naples, Italy and Krakow, Poland and the consulate in Brno, Czech Republic.

The ministry said in a Facebook post that the packages contained animal eyes and “were soaked in a liquid of a characteristic color and had a corresponding smell.”

“Not being able to stop Ukraine on the diplomatic front, they are trying to intimidate us,” Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, according to a translation. “However, I can immediately say that these attempts are useless. We will continue to work effectively for the victory of Ukraine.”

The ministry said all Ukrainian embassies and consulates had been placed under heightened security measures.

— Sam Meredith

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin would be open to talks on a possible settlement to the war in Ukraine.

His comments to reporters came shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden said he would be prepared to meet with Putin if the Russian leader was prepared to end the war.

— Sam Meredith

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin warned Russia would not be the only one to “feel empowered” if the Kremlin wins its war in Ukraine.

Speaking on a visit to Australia, Marin said China has an important role to play in bringing the war to an end, urged Europe to do more to strengthen its defensive capabilities and said the region would not be strong enough to cope without the support of key allies.

“We should make sure that we are stronger. And now I must be very honest, brutally honest with you, Europe isn’t strong enough right now,” Marin said.

“We would be in trouble without the United States … in the war in Ukraine. The United States have given a lot of weapons, a lot of financial aid, a lot of humanitarian aid to Ukraine and Europe isn’t strong enough yet,” she added.

— Sam Meredith

Ukraine’s forces have lost somewhere between 10,000 and 13,000 soldiers so far in the war against Russia, according to a Reuters report, which cited comments from Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak.

It is thought to be the first estimated death toll of Ukrainian military personnel by a top official since Ukraine’s military chief said close to 9,000 soldiers had died as of late August.

— Sam Meredith

The U.N. said it will let member states decide whether to set up a court to investigate possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Earlier in the day, the European Union proposed to set up a U.N.-backed court to investigate possible war crimes in Ukraine. The EU also proposed using frozen Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine.

“The decision to establish a tribunal, with or without the involvement of the United Nations, is a decision that will rest with the [U.N.] member states,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said during a daily press briefing.

“The Secretary‑General is definitely aware that there’ve been discussions in various forums concerning the possibility of the establishment of an international tribunal in regards to what’s going on in Ukraine and in particular, on the issue of the crime of aggression,” he said, adding that any further comment on the matter would only be speculation.

— Amanda Macias

Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Hanna Maliar speaks standing next to a dud warhead imitating a nuclear part of a Kh-55SM strategic cruise missile, which was used by Russian troops during a recent missile attacks on Ukraine.

The Kh-55SM strategic cruise missile can carry nuclear warheads, speakers at the briefing said.

— STR | NurPhoto | Getty Images

U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron in a joint press conference at the White House reaffirmed their commitment to supporting Ukraine against Russia.

“Having the U.S. strongly support the Ukrainians at this time is very important not just for the Ukrainians, but for the Europeans, who we are. This is why we do thank you for the solidarity, for the stability of our world today,” Macron said. “Because if we consider that we can abandon the country and abandon the full respect of its principles, it means there is no possible stability in this world.”

Macron is visiting the U.S. as a visitor for Biden’s first state dinner as president.

Biden said he does not intend to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin any time soon, but he would be willing to if Putin is genuinely interested in ending the war.

“I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war. He hasn’t done that yet,” Biden said.

“In the meantime, I think it’s absolutely critical, what Emmanuel said: we must support the Ukrainian people,” Biden said. “The idea that Putin is ever going to defeat Ukraine is beyond comprehension.”

– Emma Kinery