Ukraine Update: Scholz Slams ‘War Crimes’ as New Sanctions Loom

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned what he called “war crimes” committed by Russian forces in Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Vladimir Putin’s ambition to occupy all of his country was undiminished.

NATO foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels as the U.S. and its allies coordinate a new round of sanctions to punish the Kremlin. Officials in Mariupol accused Moscow’s forces of collecting bodies of dead civilians — they say at least 5,000 have been killed in Russia’s month-long siege of the city — to burn them in crematoriums and hide evidence of war crimes.

The Biden administration is sending another $100 million in military equipment to Ukraine, which is expected to include Javelin anti-tank missiles. China’s envoy to the United Nations expressed dismay at the killing of unarmed civilians without condemning Putin, with whom President Xi Jinping has close ties, for the violence. Russia has repeatedly denied killing civilians, dismissing the documentation of the deaths.