U.S. says Putin’s nuclear threats risk ‘Armageddon’; Ukraine recaptures over 190 square miles in a week

Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said rescuers had found 11 bodies and rescued 21 people from the rubble of buildings destroyed in Thursday’s missile attacks in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Reuters.

The State Emergency Service said rescuers continue working at the scene.

— Sam Meredith

Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update that repurposed captured Russian equipment now makes up a large proportion of Ukraine’s military hardware.

“Ukraine has likely captured at least 440 Russian Main Battle Tanks, and around 650 other armoured vehicles since the invasion. Over half of Ukraine’s currently fielded tank fleet potentially consists of captured vehicles,” the ministry said via Twitter.

“The failure of Russian crews to destroy intact equipment before withdrawing or surrendering highlights their poor state of training and low levels of battle discipline,” it added.

The ministry said Russian forces were likely to continue to lose heavy weaponry, with its formations “under severe strain in several sectors and increasingly demoralised troops.”

— Sam Meredith

U.S. President Joe Biden issued his most blunt warning yet about the threat of nuclear war, saying the world could face “Armageddon” if Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to use a tactical nuclear weapon to win the war in Ukraine.

Journalists from the White House press pool overheard his off-camera comments at a Democratic fundraiser.

“First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use nuclear weapon if in fact, things continue down the path they are going,” Biden said.

“I’m trying to figure out what is Putin’s off-ramp?” he continued. “Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he does not only lose face but lose significant power within Russia?”

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” Biden said.

Referring to Putin, Biden added, “He’s not joking when he talks about [the] potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is you might say significantly underperforming.”

— Sam Meredith

The organization overseeing the export of agricultural products from Ukraine said that nearly 6.4 million metric tons of grain and other foodstuffs have been exported under the U.N.-backed Black Sea Grain Initiative.

A total of 584 voyages, 302 inbound and 282 outbound, have been enabled so far, according to the Joint Coordination Center.

Read more about the Black Sea Grain Initiative here.

— Amanda Macias

The U.S. State Department said that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant belongs to Ukraine after Russia claimed control of the facility.

“Zaporizhzhia belongs to Ukraine. The power plant belongs to Ukraine and the electricity and the energy that it produces rightly belongs to Ukraine,” Vedant Patel, a spokesman for the State Department, said during a daily press briefing.

“President Putin has absolutely no authority to take over a power plant in another country, and a piece of paper issued by him or his government certainly doesn’t change that fact, either,” he added.

Earlier this week, Putin signed a decree saying that Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest facility, belongs to Russia.

— Amanda Macias

Two Russians who said they fled the country to avoid compulsory military service have requested asylum in the U.S. after landing on a remote Alaskan island in the Bering Sea, Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office said Thursday.

Karina Borger, a spokesperson for Murkowski, said by email that the office has been in communication with the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection and that “the Russian nationals reported that they fled one of the coastal communities on the east coast of Russia to avoid compulsory military service.”

Spokespersons with the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection each referred a reporter’s questions to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond Thursday.

Alaska’s senators, Republicans Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, on Thursday said the individuals landed at a beach near Gambell, an isolated community of about 600 people on St. Lawrence Island. The statement doesn’t specify when the incident occurred though Sullivan said he was alerted to the matter by a “senior community leader from the Bering Strait region” on Tuesday morning.

— Associated Press