INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
United States President Joe Biden will travel to a town near the Polish-Ukrainian border Friday, trying to signal Western resolve in the
face of a Russian invasion that has increasingly turned to a grinding war of attrition.Air Force One will jet into the eastern Polish town
attack.The trip is designed to underscore Washington's willingness to defend NATO allies, as fears rise that the month-old war in Ukraine
But it was a little late," he told EU leaders via video link, suggesting the invasion and untold bloodshed could have been prevented.With
about the cost of further delay.Naming each EU member state in turn, he thanked countries including Poland and Estonia for their support,
noted German backing came "a little later" and singled Hungary out for censure."You have to decide for yourself who you are with," Zelensky
told Hungary's rightwing populist leader Viktor Orban, who has close ties to Moscow.Zelensky said more weapons and more pressure on Moscow
were urgently needed to help besieged Ukrainian cities."Listen, Viktor, do you know what's going on in Mariupol?" he said
"There is no time to hesitate
It's time to decide already."Some in the West fear transferring ever-more lethal weapons to Ukraine could spark further escalation from
producing a steady flow of disinformation about chemical and biological weapons that Washington says could be used as cover for their
troops to Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria in case Russia expands its attack beyond Ukraine.In Poland, Biden will meet members of the
US 82nd Airborne Division, part of NATO's increasingly muscular deployment to its eastern flank.He will also receive a briefing on the
dire humanitarian situation in Ukraine, which has seen more than 3.5 million people pour out of the country, mostly to Poland.The UN
believes that more than half of Ukraine's children have already been driven from their homes, "a grim milestone that could have lasting
consequences for generations to come," according to Unicef chief Catherine Russell."Every day it's 20, 30 times we go to the basement [to
shelter]," said a sobbing 37-year-old Vasiliy Kravchuk in the garrison town of Zhytomyr."It's difficult because my wife is pregnant, I
have a little son."HellscapeWhile Ukrainian forces have stalled the initial Russian invasion and even launched some successful
counterattacks, there are early signs that both sides are digging in for a long and bloody war that neither can easily win."It is obvious
that the operation will continue until the objectives set by the president of the country are achieved," former president and top security
official Dmitry Medvedev told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.In Mariupol about 100,000 civilians are said to be trapped in the
southern port city with dwindling supplies of food, water and power, and with encircling Russian forces slowly grinding the city to
dust.Russia's highly censored media has broadcast aerial footage that appeared to be from Mariupol, showing a hellscape of charred and
pocked apartment blocks spread across a singed and blackened wasteland.Presenters blamed the devastation on Ukrainian "nationalists."The
city is a treasured prize for Russia as it would enable a land bridge between Russian-annexed Crimea and regions already controlled by
Russian proxy forces in eastern Ukraine.Kremlin-allied Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov on Thursday claimed his forces had pierced Ukrainian
defences to take Mariupol's city hall and hoist Russia's flag.That claim was not verified, and Ukraine's armed forces said Russia was
still trying to sack Mariupol "without success."While some civilians have been able to flee to Ukrainian-controlled territory, local
officials said as many as 15,000 Mariupol residents have been forcibly deported to Russia.CounterattackIn recent days Ukraine has also shown
its ability to go on the counter-attack, seemingly pushing Russia's military out of some towns near Kyiv and hitting valuable Russian
targets in the south.Ukraine on Friday claimed it had destroyed or damaged a small flotilla of Russian warships in the port city of
Berdyansk.According to the Ukrainian armed forces, Russian landing ship the "Saratov" was destroyed, and the landing ships "Caesar Kunikov"
from the inferno.British military intelligence said the attack on "high-value" targets also destroyed an ammunition storage depot and was
part of a broader strategy of Ukraine targeting vulnerable Russian supply lines."Ukrainians will continue to target logistical assets in
Russian-held areas," the U.K
squeeze Russia's economy and Putin's inner circle.The European Union and the G7, also meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, pledged to block
transactions involving the Russian central bank's gold reserves, to hamper any Moscow bid to circumvent Western sanctions.And a series of
countries announced asset freezes and travel bans on more Kremlin-connected individuals.There was no agreement to halt oil and gas imports
from Russia, which fill Moscow's war chest to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars per day.
