A Red Cross convoy on Saturday that is attempting to evacuate Ukrainian civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol has not yet reached the port city, an International Committee of the Red Cross spokesperson told CNN.
The latest: The team is "spending the night en route to Mariupol and are yet to reach the city," the spokesperson said, per CNN.
President Biden on Thursday ordered a historic release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to curb gas prices.
Driving the news: Biden is ordering the release an average of 1 million barrels per day for the next six months, which senior administration officials say will "shore up global supplies."
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began at sunrise on Saturday throughout much of the Middle East, where Russia's invasion of Ukraine has driven up the prices of food and energy, the AP reported.
Driving the news: Muslim-majority nations including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates had announced Ramadan, when many fast from dawn to dusk, would begin Saturday morning.
Polls and interviews show many Russians now accept the Kremlin’s assertion that their country is under siege from the West, the New York Times reports.
Driving the news: Polls released this week by Russia’s most respected independent pollster, Levada, put Russian President Vladimir Putin's approval rating at 83%, up from 69% in January.
Russian land mines left by retreating Russian forces in Ukraine's capital region are creating a "catastrophic" situation for civilians, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Saturday, AP reports.
Driving the news: Russian forces are leaving mines, abandoned equipment and “even the bodies of those killed" around civilian homes, Zelensky said.
Pope Francis on Saturday implicitly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for launching a "savage" war in Ukraine in his sharpest rebuke of the Russian president yet, AP reports.
Driving the news: "We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past,” the Pope told Maltese officials on the Mediterranean island nation during a weekend visit.
The Department of Defense will provide up to $300 million in security assistance and equipment to Ukraine as the nation continues to rally against Russian forces, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby announced Friday.
Why it matters: The move comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Russia's invasion has reached a "turning point," and that he had spoken with President Biden about Ukrainian forces needing more military help.
An American citizen and his brother who were detained in Afghanistan since Dec. 18 have been released and are heading home to the United States via Qatar, the State Department confirmed Friday.
The big picture: Safi Rauf, the U.S. citizen, and his brother Anees Khalil, a British citizen with an American green card, were detained by the Taliban while engaged in licensed humanitarian aid work. They have been held in Afghanistan for 105 days as a result of what Rauf called a "misunderstanding."
The International Atomic Energy Agency's top official said Friday he will lead a mission to Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant "as soon as possible" after some Russian troops left the area Thursday.
Why it matters: The power plant — the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster — fell under Russian control in the first day of its invasion of Ukraine. While the plant is inoperative, the site still houses and processes nuclear waste.
The ruble is back. Russia's currency bounced back this week to roughly its pre-invasion value — but that doesn't mean everything's fine and dandy in the Russian economy.
Why it matters: Even if the West doesn't impose stricter sanctions, Russia's GDP is expected to contract by as much as 15% over the next year as the country enters a steep recession, according to a projection from the Institute of International Finance, which is tracking the country's economy.
President Biden has said Russia is “isolated from the world,” but the rest of the world doesn't necessarily see it that way.
Driving the news: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s friendly visits to the world’s two biggest countries — India and China — suggest that Russia is hardly a pariah.
Pope Francis apologized on Friday for abuses that Indigenous children suffered while in Canada’s residential schools ran by the Catholic Church and other Christian sects from the 19th century until the 1970s.
Why it matters: Nearly 150,000 Indigenous children are believed to have been forced away from their families into the schools, which were set up to convert them to Christianity and assimilate them into mainstream society.
