President Joe Biden met Thursday morning with his national security team and world leaders, ahead of a midday speech on Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
The military operation launched in Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin has the goal of overtaking the Ukrainian government and installing a Kremlin-backed one, according to a senior U.S. military official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The invasion is the largest in Europe since World War II, the official said. The fighting has the potential to be very bloody and very costly.
International condemnation of Putin’s attack against Ukraine mounted, as U.S. and Western allies prepared to impose punishing sanctions against Moscow for a stunning full-scale invasion that global leaders had been warning about for weeks.
Ukraine’s defense ministry said it was fighting Russia in both the country’s north and south, and included an attempted takeover of the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.