21 MARCH 2022, 4 PM

MSNBC

• It is estimated that 3.5 million people have been forced to leave Ukraine.
• The vaccinated rate in Ukraine is low and therefore there is likely to be another COVId outbreak. 
• U.S. is not accepting many refugees from Ukraine.  Why?
• Filtration camps?  People being evacuated and transported.
• Miles Taylor: We have lived in a bubble of international legal norms.  Russians don’t play by those rules.  We assume that both sides have an interest in international norms and rules. 
• Elise Labott: The flow of refugees is making the receiving, neighboring countries weaker and that suits Putin as well.
• Russian military is targeting journalists in order to stop accurate reporting.
• “We were the last journalists in Mariupol.” Journalist who escaped Mariupol.  They were told that if they were captured, they would be put before a camera and made to say that everything they has previously reported was a lie.

CNN

• Gen. Kimmit: This is not a stalemate. The Russians continue to soften up the target.  They are getting to a point where they can send troops in without risking big casualties.

KYIV INDEPENDENT

• Zelensky: “NATO should either say now that they are accepting us, or openly say they are not accepting us because they are afraid of Russia – which is true.”
• Zelensky: “The only way they can seize the cities is to kill everyone, and take the empty city.”
• EU must prepare for 8 million refugees.
• Zelensky to EU: “You must support us because your life depends on it, too.”
• Russian warships shell residential buildings in Odesa.
• There was an early morning attack and shelling of the Sumykhimprom chemical plant and an ammonia tank lead.
• Russians steal five grain carriers from Berdyansk port.  Russia wishes to turn Ukrainians into serfs providing them grain.
• Over 900 people detained in an anti=war protest in Russia.

UKRAINE WORLD, Podcast

• People are trying to use the fact that the Azov Battalion is defending the city of Mariupol as evidence that the Ukrainians are supporting Nazis. 
• People are in despair about trying to close the airspace. 

NYT

• A shopping mall was destroyed in Kyiv.  At least six are dead.
• Zelensky said that a relief convoy near Kharkiv had been hijacked by Russian forces.
• Ukrainian officials say that the Russians are forcibly deporting people, including children.
• Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that 2,389 children were taken from their parents in the Donbas region and sent to Russia in a single day, Saturday.
• The U.S. is opposing Poland’s proposal for a NATO peacekeeping mission?  What?
• Poland is proposing a mission which would be able to defend itself and operate on Ukrainian territory.