Zelenskyy denounces abduction of Melitopol mayor, reports 1,300 Ukrainian troops lost: LIVE UPDATES
The Russian military broadened its attacks on Friday, targeting an airfield in the west and a major industrial hub in the east. The Ukrainians also said the Russians shelled a cancer hospital south of Kyiv and a mosque in Mariupol where more than 80 people were hiding.
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A former U.S. intelligence official tells Fox News Digital that Russia has embraced over the years a similar plan to an American military concept known as the OODA loop which enables one side to react to unfolding events more rapidly and efficiently than an opponent.
The OODA loop, which stands for observe, orient, decide, act and was developed by U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd and is defined by Tech-Target as a "four-step approach to decision-making that focuses on filtering available information, putting it in context and quickly making the most appropriate decision while also understanding that changes can be made as more data becomes available."
The strategy is especially useful, according to Tech-Target, in "scenarios where competition is involved and where the ability to react to changing circumstances faster than an opponent leads to an advantage."
Rebekah Koffler, a former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency agent and author of "Putin's Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America" told Fox News Digital that the Russians have adopted a similar concept.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly placed one of his top intelligence officials on house arrest, a move that one expert tells Fox News Digital would be a sign that he is seeking to shift blame for a Ukrainian invasion that U.S. intelligence believes has not gone according to plan.
According to a report from the Sunday Times, Russian journalist Andrei Soldatov claims that Putin has arrested the head of the Federal Security Service, Sergey Beseda. Fox News has not independently confirmed this.
Beseda has reportedly been placed on house arrest along with his deputy Anatoly Bolyukh.
The Federal Security Service, known as FSB, is Russia’s top security and counterintelligence apparatus. One former U.S. intelligence officer tells Fox News Digital that the move signals Putin’s dissatisfaction with his intelligence community’s assessment of the Ukrainian invasion.
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Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher and Florida Rep. Michael Waltz call on the Biden administration to supply Ukraine with 'everything they need' to defeat Russia.
Lt. Col. Dakota Wood assesses the strength of the Russian and Ukrainian forces.
FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., accused President Biden and Democrats of using the Russian oil ban as a "fig leaf" to cover for their "radical" Green New Deal policy proposals.
Daines made the comments during an interview with FOX Business and said that this isn't just about banning Russian oil: Democrats want to ban all oil."
I think the Democrats are using this ban as a fig leaf to cover up their radical Green New Deal priorities because it's not just about banning Russian oil. They want to ban all oil," Daines said.
He said that while Democrats want to ban Russian oil, they aren't willing to support American oil either.
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Russia's President Vladimir Putin (Photo by MIKHAIL METZEL/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin is feeling "cornered like a rat" as his Ukrainian invasion lingers into its third week, a former U.S. intelligence officer told Fox News Digital, and his personal history suggests he will continue to lash out in order to regain the upper hand.
Rebekah Koffler, a former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency agent and author of "Putin's Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America", told Fox News Digital on Saturday that an excerpt from Putin’s 2000 autobiography "First Person" detailing growing up in a dilapidated Leningrad apartment can be applied to his record as the Russian leader and his current invasion of Ukraine.
Putin describes in his book having to traverse several rat infested floors to get to his childhood apartment and that one day he wrote that he grabbed a stick and chased a large rat into a corner. When the rat realized he was trapped, he attacked young Putin forcing him to run away in a moment that apparently impacted the future Russian president.
Koffler said that the childhood story about the rat, and other stories Putin has approved to be told about his personal life, are a conscious effort to convey to the West that he will always strike back when trapped.
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Fox News correspondent Alex Hogan looks at the influx of Ukrainian refugees in Poland.
"I'm confused," one Ukrainian refugee in Poland told Fox News. "I don't know in the future what we will do."
Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies.
Satellite images taken Saturday reveal destruction and damage to residential buildings, as well as a hospital, in Mariupol, Ukraine, as Russia's ongoing war with the country continues.
The images were taken by Maxar Technologies, a private company in the United States, and show severe damage to several residential buildings throughout the southern Ukrainian city.
The photos show fires, as well as artillery craters left behind from Russia's attack on the city.
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Amb. Paula Dobriansky criticizes Russia’s diplomatic terms and predicts the likelihood of diplomacy.
Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst provides the latest developments from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Russia is denying a Ukrainian claim that the country is trying to take full control of Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant under under the management of the state firm Rosatom, according to a statement from Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
In a telephone call with Grossi, Director General of Rosatom Alexey Likhachev said that while some company personnel were present at the Zaporizhzhya NPP in south-eastern Ukraine, Rosatom had not taken operational control of the plant or intended for it to be controlled under Rosatom's "management system."
In a letter sent to Grossi, the President of Ukraine's nuclear power plant operator Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said around 400 Russian soldiers were “being present full time on site” and stated the plant is currently controlled by the Russian military forces’ commander. Kotin's claim was later denied by the Russian Federation.
Earlier this month, Ukraine warned the IAEA that Russian military forces had taken control of the country’s largest nuclear power plant on March 4.
The Zaporizhzhya NPP is Ukraine's largest nuclear power plant.
Rumors have been swirling about possible martial law coming to Russia amid concerns the war in Ukraine could prove the boiling crisis that blows the lid off a controlled society, a sort of hybrid police state with Starbucks and vibrant social media.
That last bit of description, of course, applied only until very recently, when cheerful young baristas were sent home and Instagram was served its death sentence. Most independent news outlets in Russia have been shuttered with writers now in exile to avoid going to jail for as many as 15 years for crossing the Kremlin's latest and arbitrary "fake news" red line.
The last journalistic brand of note left standing in Moscow is Novaya Gazeta. Its editor-in-chief won last year's Nobel Peace Prize. Perhaps Novaya is too famous to fail, too feted to flee. But it is now under enormous pressure. The deputy editor told Fox News about the mood in Moscow as he sees it.
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Satellite imagery of artillery craters in fields and damaged buildings, Zhovteneyvi district, western Mariupol.
Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies.
Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., says President Biden's comments describing what he will or won't do in Ukraine could put the U.S. at a disadvantage.
"A good strategist will never disclose what he will or will not do in advance of combat," Garcia, a former Navy pilot, told Fox News Digital. He noted that Biden previously told reporters that he gave Putin a list of 16 U.S. entities that are "off limits" for a Russian cyberattack in June.
Biden previously told reporters that he had no intention of sending American troops to Ukraine and, more recently, no intention of implementing a no-fly zone over Ukraine to avoid U.S. involvement in the war with Russia.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that he and Israel's Prime Minister Naftali Bennett discussed Russian aggression and the potential for peace talks during their conversation by phone.
"We talked about Russian aggression and the prospects for peace talks," Zelenskyy wrote in a tweet.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday issued a defiant message to Russian President Vladimir Putin as his forces continue to wage war across Ukraine.
The Pentagon warned this week that Russia has started to make greater advances on Kyiv as convoys threaten the capital city from nearly every direction.
In a news address Saturday, Zelenskyy said Russia will have to "carpet-bomb" the capital and kill its residents if it wants to take the city.
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BEIJING, CHINA FEBRUARY 4, 2022: Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L) and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping pose during a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Alexei Druzhinin/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS
China will never treat Russian President Vladimir Putin as an equal and will prove "ruthless" in any business dealings after crippling sanctions and a drawn-out invasion have left Russia vulnerable, according to a former Russian diplomat.
"Putin might go to China," former Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev told Fox News Digital. "He goes to China because he’s not competitive in other markets and he sells to China the raw materials, but China will never take him as an equal partner or even as ally because they don’t need it."
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Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service on Saturday released video that supposedly shows the destruction of a Russian multiple rocket launcher system.
The brief video shows an incredible explosion that leaves nothing of the system behind.
Ukraine throughout the invasion has touted its success in destroying Russian vehicles and arms, with its most recent report claiming that Ukrainian forces destroyed 58 aircraft, 382 tanks and 135 artillery pieces, among others.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with Western nations Saturday to help him free a captured mayor from the southern town of Melitopol after he was taken by Russian forces.
"We address all the world leaders that talk to Moscow: France, Germany, Israel and others," Zelenskyy said in an address. "I personally called the Chancellor of Germany Sholtz and talked to him as well as to Macron.
"I'll talk to whoever I need to talk to in order for our people to be freed," he added, urging top nations to use their global standing to "influence this situation."
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The Kremlin has reportedly place FSB foreign intelligence chief Sergey Beseda under house arrest with his deputy, British newspaper The Times reported.
The arrests follow a search of some 20 addresses throughout Moscow as FSB investigated officers who may have contacted journalists. Reports over the past two weeks suggested that an FSB agent may have leaked critical information to Ukraine and the West.
“The formal basis for conducting these searches is the accusation of the embezzlement of funds earmarked for subversive activities in Ukraine,” said Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled human rights activist. “The real reason is unreliable, incomplete and partially false information about the political situation in Ukraine”
Putin as reportedly alleged that the FSB provided “false information” on the situation in Ukraine, including reports in the run-up to the invasion that were “simply not right.”
Russian agents are reportedly targeting Google and Apple employees based in the country with prison time.
Agents apparently appeared at the door of a Google executive's home in Moscow and demanded that he remove an app from its Google Play Store at the request of Russian President Vladimir Putin, The Washington Post reported.
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President Biden authorized $200 million in new security assistance to Ukraine, a White House official told Fox News, bringing total defense aid for Ukraine to $1.2 billion in the last year.
Biden's authorization comes after a public disagreement with Poland on sending fighter jets to Ukraine. The U.S. has been flowing weapons into Ukraine but balked at transferring MiGs, saying Russia would see such a move as escalatory.
Nonetheless, Moscow warned Saturday that it views any weapons deliveries into Ukraine as "legitimate targets."
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Russia will push for a referendum to create the “Kherson People’s Republic” in a similar model to the supposed breakaway Ukrainian territories of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Sergey Khlan, a deputy of the Kherson regional council, reported on the possible referendum Saturday, claiming that the military has contacted local deputies to ask for support.
In this image from video provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office and posted on Facebook early Saturday, March 12, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced during a press conference Saturday that his forces have lost around 1,300 troops over the past 17 days, Reuters reported.
Ukraine had avoided providing any hard number for its losses in combat, providing numbers of civilian deaths instead.
Russia last week claimed that it had killed at least 2,870 Ukrainian troops and wounded 3,500 more.
Two major Polish cities, including the country's capital of Warsaw and Krakow, its second-largest city, are running out of space for Ukrainian refugees escaping Russian attacks.
Nearly 2.6 million Ukrainians have fled the country amid Russia's invasion as of Saturday — the majority of which (1.6 million) sought refuge in Poland, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
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FSB agents last year visited the homes of Google and Apple executives in Russia and threatened them with jail if they didn’t remove an app that helped register protest votes against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Washington Post reported that this was just one part of a broader campaign by Putin to crack down on opposition prior to the invasion of Ukraine, including the imprisonment of political adversary Alexei Navalny and the Kremlin takeover of Russia’s Facebook equivalent.
The Kremlin also moved to intimidate foreign tech companies operating in Russia: It imposed fines totaling $120 million against firms accused of defying censorship guidelines and ordered 13 companies to keep employees in Russia, allowing for the potential arrest or punishment of employees for their employers’ actions.
“I don’t think it’s an over-dramatization to say that Putin is longing for a return to Soviet Union times, not only in geopolitical power but in terms of total control inside the state,” said Pavel Khodorkovsky, founder of the New York-based Institute for Modern Russia.
Russian officials attempted to enter and take operational control of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Reuters reported.
Ten officials from Rosatom, a Russian state nuclear company, unsuccessfully tried to enter the plant and take control of operations.
Petro Kotin, the head of Ukrainian energy nuclear company Energoatom, said in a televised interview that “around 500 Russian soldiers with automatic weapons” remained on the plant’s grounds, creating a “bad psychological state” for the staff working there.
A senior Russian diplomat warned the U.S. that Moscow will view any weapons deliveries into Ukraine as “legitimate targets.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia “warned the U.S. that pumping weapons from a number of countries it orchestrates isn’t just a dangerous move, it’s an action that makes those convoys legitimate targets.”
He also denounced the “unprecedented attempt to deal a serious blow” to Russia’s economy through sanctions and noted that Moscow will act to avoid hurting itself.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Citizens of southern Ukraine city have gathered in the streets to protest the alleged abduction of the mayor by Russian forces.
Hundreds of people gathered near the occupied administration buildings to demand the release of Ivan Fedorov. Ukrainian officials posted video on Friday that they claimed showed Russian troops leading a blindfolded Federov.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “a new stage of terror.”
“This is obviously a sign of weakness of the invaders,” he said.
A smoke from shelling rises as a wreath of flowers is placed at a cemetery in Vasylkiv south west of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 12, 2022. Russian forces appeared to make progress from northeast Ukraine in their slow fight to reach the capital, Kyiv, while tanks and artillery pounded places already under siege. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Fighting raged on the outskirts of Kyiv Saturday as air raid sirens sounded in the capital and Russian troops attempt to circle the city.
Artillery pounded Kyiv’s northwestern outskirts. To the city’s southwest, two columns of smoke – one black and one white -- rose in the town of Vaslkyiv after a strike on an ammunition depot. The strike on the depot caused hundreds of small explosions from detonating ammunition.
In the besieged city of Mariupol at least 1,500 people have died as of Friday, the government said. The city still has no food or water and people have been forced to stop burying their dead because of the sheer numbers and danger. Russian troops shelled a maternity hospital last week and on Saturday the government said a mosque where people were hiding was attacked. At least three people, including a child died in the hospital attack.
Responding to a Biden tweet, Alexey Goncharenko says he does not see a difference between providing Ukraine with stingers and aircraft.
A statement from the Ukrainian president’s office said that humanitarian corridors are open in the country from 9 a.m. Saturday to evacuate residents and get aid in, including one from Zaporizhzhia to the besieged city of Mariupol where there is no food, water or power.
"I hope that today will be a successful day, all planned routes will be open and Russia will adhere to its commitments to guarantee a ceasefire," Iryna Vereshchuk, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine said in the statement.
Ukraine's president was 'truthful, speaking from the heart,' Fox News contributor Kiron Skinner says.
Former French Foreign Legion member identified as Mornay walks around the border crossing in Medyka, southeastern Poland, on Friday, March 11, 2022. At Poland's Medyka border, Mornay is one of seven former members of the French Foreign Legion, an elite military force, who are voluntarily providing their own security to refugees and are on the lookout for traffickers. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)
Concerns have grown over how to protect Ukrainian refugees from human trafficking and rape as more than 2.5 million mostly women and children have fled the war.
A man was detained in Poland on suspicion of raping a 19-year-old refugee he’d lured with offers of shelter and in another case a man seemed to change his story when he was questioned by authorities about only offering help to women and children.
“You have to worry about any potential risks for trafficking — but also exploitation, and sexual exploitation and abuse. These are the kinds of situations that people like traffickers … look to take advantage of,” Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees head of global communications, said.
Police said the suspect met the 19-year-old girl "by offering his help via an internet portal. She escaped from war-torn Ukraine, did not speak Polish. She trusted a man who promised to help and shelter her. Unfortunately, all this turned out to be deceitful manipulation."
Police in Berlin have also warned women of accepting offers to stay overnight.
Human Trafficking Foundation director of operations Tamara Barnett said, “When you’ve suddenly got a huge cohort of really vulnerable people who need money and assistance immediately it’s sort of a breeding ground for exploitative situations and sexual exploitation. When I saw all these volunteers offering their houses … that flagged a worry in my head.”
Officials in Romania and Poland said undercover officers are watching out for potential criminality and men offering rides to women in a Romanian border town have been turned away.
“We are trying to make a control for every vehicle leaving the area,” Ionut Epureanu, the chief police commissioner of Romania's Suceava county said. “A hundred people making transport have good intentions, but it’s enough to be one that isn’t … and tragedy can come.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Mariana Vishegirskaya lies in a hospital bed after giving birth to her daughter Veronika, in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022. Vishegirskaya survived the Russian airstrike on a children's and maternity hospital in Mariupol last Wednesday. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Newborn Veronika curled against her mother’s side on Friday, as if to hide from the horror around them — the war that tore apart the Mariupol maternity hospital where she was meant to greet the world.
On the eve of giving birth, her mother, Mariana Vishegirskaya, had to flee the hospital when a Russian airstrike hit.
Her brow and cheek bloodied, she clutched her belongings in a plastic bag as she navigated down the hospital's debris-strewn stairs in her polka dot pajamas on Wednesday.
Images of the desperate mothers and medical workers from the Children's and Women's Health hospital shocked the world, as the bombing took Russia’s war against Ukraine to a sickening new level.
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FILE - Refugees fleeing war in neighboring Ukraine queue at the Medyka border crossing, Poland, March 10, 2022. Around 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine in the two weeks since Russia invaded. Most have fled to the European Union. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)
Nearly 1.6 million people Ukrainians have fled to Poland since the war started a Polish border agency said Saturday, according to BBC News.
A total of 2.5 million refugees have left the country, most heading to Poland, along with Hungary, Romania, Moldova and other nearby countries.
Ukraine has accused Russian troops of kidnapping the mayor of Melitopol in southeastern Ukraine.
"The abduction of the mayor of Melitopol is classified as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocol banning the capture of civilian hostages during the war," Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted to Facebook. "We urge the international community to immediately react to the abduction of Ivan Fedorov and other civilians in Ukraine, to strengthen pressure on Russia to force it to end the barbaric war against the Ukrainian people."
Ukraine's parliament said on Twitter that Fedorov was abducted by 10 troops and had a bag put over his head at one point.
The first Ukrainian refugees relocating to Guatemala arrived in the Central American country on Friday.
"I don't know what the future holds for us, but I hope the war ends soon," one of the refugees said in a video shown by Guatemala, according to Reuters. "It's hard to say how much my heart hurts for my mother and father in Ukraine, who can't leave.
"At least 2.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the war started, most heading to neighboring Poland and other nearby countries like Moldova, Hungary and Romania.
An explosion is seen in an apartment building after Russian's army tank fires in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Heavy shelling continued in Dnipro and Mykolaiv Friday and in besieged Mariupol, unceasing barrages into the city have thwarted repeated attempts to bring in food and water and evacuate trapped civilians.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Russian troops shelled a cancer hospital in the southern city of Mykolaiv, Ukraine , with heavy artillery while hundreds of patients were inside, Ukrainian officials said.
No one was killed in the attack that left the building damaged, head doctor Maksim Beznosenko said.
Mykolaiv is just under 300 miles south of Kyiv.The Russians bombed a maternity hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol this week, leaving at least three people, including one child dead.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Fox News correspondent Mike Tobin discusses how the war in Ukraine is impacting those with existing health conditions and Lviv train station serving as a hub for refugees on ‘Special Report.’
Click here to read Fox News' live coverage from Friday.
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