Fighting in Ukraine Forces Two Million to Flee as Russia Presses Offensive

The number of people forced to escape Ukraine has passed a milestone of two million, as the civilian toll of the Russia-Ukraine war mounted along with international efforts to press President Vladimir Putin to halt the Russian offensive.

A Russian military convoy opened fire near a checkpoint in the besieged northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, interrupting evacuations in violation of a brokered cease-fire. In many cities, Russia continued to obstruct civilians fleeing violence by firing in their vicinity and fighting nearby established humanitarian corridors.

Russia late Tuesday again proposed opening evacuation corridors for civilians from five cities including Mariupol starting at 9 a.m. Wednesday. But efforts to implement a cease-fire in the southeastern city have failed for four days running.

As heavy fighting continued across the country on Day 13 of the Russian invasion, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said an additional one million people have been displaced inside Ukraine after fleeing their homes.

Also Tuesday, Poland said it would immediately give its fleet of MiG-29 jet fighters to the U.S. at Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany after days of public speculation over donating the planes to Ukraine and raising the possibility of wider U.S. commitment.

The Pentagon said it wasn’t clear that there was a “substantive rationale” for having Polish jets intended for Ukraine at an American air base, saying such a proposal raised concerns for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“We will continue to consult with Poland and our other NATO allies about this issue and the difficult logistical challenges it presents, but we do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

As Russia pressed in on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, Washington and its allies also looked to inflict further economic pain on Mr. Putin, who has shown no indication he would bow to global condemnation of the war that he started. The Biden administration is banning imports of Russian oil, the lifeblood of Moscow’s economy, as well as Russian natural gas and other energy sources, President Biden said Tuesday at the White House.

“Americans have rallied to support the Ukrainian people and made it clear we will not be part of subsidizing Putin’s war,” Mr. Biden said.

The European Union said it planned to cut its imports of Russian natural gas by two-thirds by the end of this year, and the U.K. said it would phase out the import of Russian oil by the end of the year.

The announcements came as U.S. intelligence agency chiefs said Russia is facing serious military shortcomings in its invasion of Ukraine, including morale and logistical problems, and will be hard-pressed to control territory and install a pro-Moscow regime in the face of what U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines called a persistent and significant Ukrainian insurgency.

Ms. Haines and CIA Director William Burns told the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that Mr. Putin is likely to double down on his efforts to subdue Ukraine, with increasing disregard for civilian casualties. It will be “an ugly next few weeks,” Mr. Burns said.

In a speech to the British House of Commons via live video Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the U.K. for the military aid it had given Ukraine and pleaded for more, expressly for fighter planes to counter Russia’s air advantage.

Mr. Zelensky likened Ukraine’s plight to the U.K.’s darkest hours in World War II, echoing a stirring 1940 speech Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave to Parliament, defiant in the face of the Nazi threat.

“We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost,” Mr. Zelensky said. “We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.”

In Mariupol, residents have gone without power, cellphone service or water supply for over a week. Russian forces pounded its residential neighborhoods Tuesday as the city’s defenders refused to surrender. Mayor Vadim Boychenko said that children in the city of 400,000 have started to die from dehydration.

“My heart is full of pain and hatred of the fascists who have blockaded our beloved Mariupol,” he said. “Something that we thought was impossible in the 21st century is happening today. It’s frightening news for Europe, and a frightening reality for Ukraine.”

Around the strategic town of Izyum, eastern Ukraine, Russian forces advanced as they attempted to encircle some of the country’s most hardened forces in the Donbas region. Ukraine continued to repel Russian attempts to break into the southeastern port city of Mykolaiv, the gateway to the Black Sea port of Odessa. Some 3,000 civilians managed to flee from the contested suburb of Irpin, northwest of Kyiv.