Zelenskyy presses senior U.S. officials for more powerful weapons; Mariupol humanitarian corridor fails

 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its third month on Sunday, a conflict that has killed thousands and led to the worst refugee crisis Europe has seen since World War II.

The war will end only if Russian troops fully withdraw from the country, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Ukraine to discuss military aid with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The meeting with the senior U.S. officials was confirmed by Oleksiy Arestovych, a presidential adviser, in an interview on Ukrainian TV.

Ukraine is pressing the West for more powerful weapons to combat Russia’s campaign to seize large swaths of the country’s southern and eastern regions.

Russia is planning a staged referendum in Kherson, Ukraine, to justify its occupation, the British defense ministry said in an intelligence update.

The southern city is important to Moscow’s objective of establishing a land bridge to Crimea and dominating southern Ukraine, the U.K. Defense Ministry said in a tweet.

The Crimea peninsula, which Russia illegally seized control of in 2014, lies to the south of Ukraine between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. It is separated from Russia to the east by the narrow Kerch Strait.

The ministry noted that Russia previously held a “illegitimate referendum” in Crimea in 2014 to retrospectively legitimize the accession of the peninsula into the country.

“Russia’s own domestic elections have been beset by allegations of vote rigging and have seen high-profile opposition blocked from running,” the ministry added.