Ukraine-Russia war live updates: Zelensky tears into UN as Russian economy on the brink of collapse

In its latest provision of weaponry for Ukraine, the US approved a $100m transfer of Javelin anti-armour missiles on Tuesday, an administration official said.

The $100m will be used for Javelins — a portable anti-tank weapon used extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq — which was requested by the Ukrainian military to fight Russian armour, the administration official said on the condition of anonymity.

With this $100m worth of assistance, the US has now aided Ukraine to the tune of $2.4bn since president Biden took office in January last year.

This aid is part of the financial assistance for Ukraine cleared by Congress last month after Russia invaded the country.

Ukrainian prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova said around 5,000 Russian war crimes are under investigation in the war-marred country.

“Even in such a cruel situation, war crimes are first on the spectrum, followed by crimes against humanity and genocide,” Ms Venediktova said at a briefing in Bucha, reported The Kyiv Independent.

US chipmaker Intel Corp announced it is suspending all business operations in Russia, effective immediately on Tuesday.

The company said it has implemented business continuity measures to minimise disruption to its global operations.

“Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace,” the chipmaker firm said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky came down on the United Nations Security Council in his nightly address and said that despite the council’s existence, there is no security in the world.

“The UN Security Council exists, and security in the world doesn’t,” Mr Zelensky said, adding that the UN “is currently unable to carry out the functions for which it was created”.

He also cornered Russia for violating the international institution with its dysfunctional activities.

Russia “discredits the UN and all other international institutions where it still participates,” the Ukrainian president said, calling for the country’s removal from the panel.

Russia’s role at the UN is “to block everything constructive and use global architecture in order to spread lies and justify the evil it does,” Mr Zelensky said.

Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine is now the capital of global democracy as it prepares for visits from the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell in the coming days.

“Now Kyiv is the capital of global democracy, the capital of the struggle for freedom for all on the European continent,” the Ukrainian president said in his nightly address after the speech at the United Nations Security Council.

He also called for more sanctions against Russia and said that “now is a crucial moment, especially for western leaders”.

ICYMI: People are still only able to flee the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol on foot or by private car as efforts to organise mass evacuations by bus to safer parts of Ukraine have failed, Ukraine‘s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

Buses cannot reach the first part of the evacuation route from Mariupol, which is “nearly 80 km (50 miles)- people have to either walk or find a way to make this journey in a private car,” she said on national television.

The besieged city has been battered by Russian airstrikes and is currently suffering from a severe lack of food, water and medicine for the tens of thousands still trapped.

Read Bel Trew’s harrowing account of the survivors of the Mariupol siege below:

ICYMI: Cats, dogs, hamsters and kangaroos are among the animals who have been rescued as the impact of the conflict is felt far beyond the human population, reports Sofia Barbarani.

A Ukrainian MP has called for the “denazification of Russia” and for images of the nation’s alleged war crimes to be “shown on Russian television every single day”.

Inna Sovsun, the deputy leader of the Holos party, said Russia is committing genocide following the “terrifying” attack on the city of Bucha, where dead civilians have been left strewn across streets and piled into mass graves and there has been widespread evidence of rape.

ICYMI: A total of 3,846 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Tuesday.

This is slightly more than the 3,376 who escaped on Monday, Ukraine‘s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said in an online post.

ICYMI: The shelling is so intense that on bad days it turns the sky orange. But despite this, Iryna Bondarenko and her team get in their cars and drive through the explosions, to deliver life-saving medicines and services to those living with HIV in Ukraine.

They work with the Alliance for Public Health (APH) , Ukraine’s largest health-focused NGO, which since the start of Russia’s invasion has continued to support thousands of people with HIV/AIDS across the country.

It is vital work as Ukraine has one of the highest HIV rates in the world: there are more than 250,000 people currently living with the virus.

Nearly half of them reside in cities and regions currently under heavy bombardment and so there are fears that war will only worsen Ukraine’s epidemic and even “reverse gains against the virus by twenty years”, if treatment and testing is curtailed, and medical supplies strangled.