Russia targeting urban centres, Biden announces new measures

U.S. President Joe Biden warned that if the Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t “pay a price” for the invasion of Ukraine, the aggression wouldn’t stop with one country.

Latest updates as of 6:45 a.m. EST on Wednesday:

Ukraine’s leader decried Russia’s escalation of attacks on crowded cities as a blatant terror campaign, while U.S. President Joe Biden warned that if the Russian leader didn’t “pay a price” for the invasion, the aggression wouldn’t stop with one country.

“Nobody will forgive. Nobody will forget,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed after Tuesday’s bloodshed on the central square in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, and the deadly bombing of a TV tower in the capital. He called the attack on the square “frank, undisguised terror” and a war crime.

The assault on Kharkiv continued Wednesday, even as Russia said it would be ready to resume talks with the Ukrainian side in the evening. A Russian strike on the regional police and intelligence headquarters, according to the Ukrainian state emergency service. It said three people were wounded.

The strike blew off the roof of the police building and set the top floor on fire, and pieces of the five-story building were strewn across adjacent streets, according to videos and photos released by the emergency service.

In Wednesday’s strikes, four people died, nine were wounded and rescuers pulled 10 people out of the rubble, according to the service.

Biden used his first State of the Union address to highlight the resolve of a reinvigorated Western alliance that has worked to rearm the Ukrainian military and adopt tough sanctions, which he said have left Russian President Vladimir Putin ”isolated in the world more than he has ever been.”

“Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson — when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos,” Biden said. “They keep moving. And the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising.”