Speaking at a fundraiser in Los Angeles on Friday, Biden said “there was no doubt” that Vladimir Putin was planning to “come in.” “Nothing like this has happened since World War II,” he told donors. “I know a lot of people thought I might be exaggerating. “But I knew we had data to keep [Putin] was going to go in, out of bounds. “There was no doubt; and Zelensky did not want to hear it.” Biden spoke of his task of gathering and stepping up support for Ukraine as the war continues into its fourth month. However, despite continued Western support for Ukraine and Zelensky, a former British military leader has accused leaders of lacking a long-term strategy in the conflict. General Lord Richards said the British government had adopted a “let’s see how it goes” strategy and had not shown “determination”. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said: “There is, at best, what could be called an augmentation strategy without again early and decisive timing of goals, ways and means. It’s a “let’s see how it goes” strategy, in other words it’s not a strategy at all. “There is still little idea in London, Washington or elsewhere how we ‘want’ the war to end or what kind of Russia we seek to shape, especially on the vital long-term issue of relations with China.” He said leaders should consider “persuading a weakened Russia to align with the West” instead of succumbing to Chinese influence. “Britain remains one of the leading economies and military powers in the world, even if it is a decisive regional strategic power these days,” he added. “The strategy is about choices and the more choices one has to make to balance the goals, the ways and the means in pursuing the national interest, the more informed one must be.” Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7 p.m. BST Zelensky said on Saturday that Ukraine was on track to win the war with Russia as fighting focused on a key city in the east. Russian forces are trying to occupy Sievierodonetsk in an eastern advance, turning it into one of the bloodiest battles of the conflict to date. “We will definitely prevail in this war that Russia has started,” Zelensky told a video conference in Singapore. “It is on the battlefields in Ukraine that the future rules of this world are being decided.” However, the forces of neither side have so far managed to steal a course despite the fierce street battles, which have led to the collapse of much of the city, the Reuters news agency reported. The British Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that Russian forces had not advanced south of the city since Friday. “Intense street-to-street fighting is ongoing and both sides are likely to have heavy casualties,” the ministry said in a statement posted on Twitter. Addressing the Shangri-La Dialogue event from a secret location in Kyiv, Zelensky said it was vital that nations sending aid did not give up. “If, due to Russian blockades, we are unable to export our food, people will face an acute and severe food crisis and famine in many countries in Asia and Africa,” he said. He said Russia was blocking ports in the Black Sea and Azov Seas, preventing Ukraine from exporting food to the rest of the world. It comes as the governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, says the Russians have taken control of most of the city, after days of hard progress and slow retreat on both sides in a clash in which a Ukrainian military official has called a “war”. artillery “. Meanwhile, the mayor of Mariupol said sanitation systems had broken down and corpses were rotting in the streets of the southern city decimated by Russian bombing. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office told the Telegram that at least 287 children had been killed in the war so far, adding that it had learned of the deaths of 24 more children in Mariupol.
