The U.K. Ministry of Defense said that officials addressed the structure, size and composition of any future “reassurance force,” while the chief of the defense staff, Adm. Antony Radakin, emphasized that the U.K. would look to “build on the formidable capabilities of the Ukrainian army and put them in the strongest possible position to deter Russian aggression.”

The weekend discussions are planned to set the ground for a further meeting between defense ministers in Brussels and the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Friday.

Britain has been promoting the idea of a European-led peacekeeping force for Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire but it has said such a force needed a U.S. “backstop” to make it credible in the face of possible Russian reprisals.

Building a force big enough to act as a credible deterrent — U.K. officials have talked about possibly 10,000 to 30,000 troops — would be a considerable effort for nations that shrank their militaries after the Cold War but are now rearming.

Trump, who has been pushing for a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine, temporarily paused military aid to Kyiv and has repeatedly said that the country will never join the NATO military alliance.

Death toll from from Friday’s strike rises to 18

The death toll from a Russian missile strike in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih has risen to 18, including nine children, regional Governor Serhii Lysak said Saturday.

A further 72 people were injured in Friday’s attack, the youngest a 3-month-old. About half of them remained in the hospital, with 17 in serious condition.

“There can never be forgiveness for this,” said Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city’s defense council. “Eternal memory to the victims.”

Kryvyi Rih is Zelenskyy’s hometown.

“The missile struck an area right next to residential buildings — hitting a playground and ordinary streets,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.

Local authorities said the strike damaged about 20 apartment buildings, more than 30 vehicles, an educational building and a restaurant.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Friday that it had carried out a high-precision missile strike with a high explosive warhead on a restaurant where a meeting with unit commanders and Western instructors was taking place.

Russian military claimed that the strike killed 85 military personnel and foreign officers and destroyed 20 vehicles. The military’s claims could not be independently verified. The Ukrainian General Staff rejected the claims.

A later drone strike on Kryvyi Rih killed one woman and wounded seven other people.

Russian forces launched 92 drones into Ukraine overnight, with 51 shot down by air defenses, the Ukrainian air force wrote on social media Saturday. A further 31 decoy drones also failed to reach their targets, it said.

Elsewhere, one person died Saturday in the Russian-occupied town of Horlivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region due to shelling, Moscow-installed Gov. Denis Pushilin said. Security officials told Russian state news channels that they had destroyed 28 Ukrainian drones over the Donetsk region overnight, marking the first time that the occupied territory had been targeted by such long-range strikes.

Zelenskyy criticizes US ambassador’s response

Zelenskyy blamed the daily strikes on Russia’s unwillingness to end the war: “Every missile, every drone strike proves Russia wants only war,” he said, urging Ukraine’s allies to increase pressure on Moscow and bolster Ukraine’s air defenses.

He also criticized the response of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to the strike. Ambassador Bridget A. Brink posted on social media Friday that she was “horrified” by the strike in Kryvyi Rih. “More than 50 people injured and 16 killed, including 6 children. This is why the war must end,” the post said.

Zelenskyy, who has so far had a strained relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, described the post as “unpleasantly surprising” for not directly naming Russia as the perpetrator of the attack.

“Such a strong country, such a strong people — and such a weak reaction. They are even afraid to say the word ‘Russian’ when talking about the missile that killed children,” he said in a post that also praised countries including Japan, Britain, Switzerland and Germany for their “principled statements.”

“Yes, the war must end. But in order to end it, we must not be afraid to call a spade a spade,” he said.

At least 18 people are dead and 61 wounded after a Russian ballistic missile strike hit a central Ukrainian city on Friday, Ukrainian officials said.

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DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Swiss President Viola Amherd said Monday, during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Bern, that her country has offered to organize a peace summit that aims to help bring an end to Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia.

“I confirmed to him that Switzerland is ready to organize a conference,” Amherd said during a joint press conference with Zelenskyy. “We have agreed that we will examine the details of the next steps in depth to ensure that the peace process is a success.”

The two presidents said the Ukrainian and Swiss teams will begin preparations for the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland as early as Tuesday. No details were provided about when or how such a summit could take place, and Russia hasn’t been involved in the process.

“This summit is intended to infuse the necessary energy into everything that has already been achieved and to determine that the end of the war must be fair, and the restoration of the strength of international law – complete,” Zelenskyy said.

Talks of a peace summit come as Ukrainian military chiefs said Monday their forces had shot down a Russian early warning and control plane and a key command center aircraft, which if confirmed would be a feat for Ukraine in the almost two-year war.

On Sunday, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, took part in Swiss-hosted talks in Davos among dozens of national envoys about Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace formula — which ultimately aims to feed into the possible peace summit.

As for who might attend, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was open “to all countries in the world that respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity … So draw conclusions about whom we invite.”

He conveyed Ukraine’s strong desire for countries from the Global South to be present.

“It is important for us to show that the whole world is against the aggression of Russia and the whole world is for a fair peace,” Zelenskyy said. “If countries truly want the war to end, they will support our plan,” but added it was an “open plan” that would welcome proposals from other countries.

Switzerland, which has long touted its neutrality, has been at pains to strike the right balance over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine that began in February 2022. The Swiss have lined up with European Union sanctions on Russian people and interests over the conflict.

Zelenskyy’s trip to Switzerland, where he also met with parliamentary leaders on Monday, includes a visit Tuesday to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the eastern town of Davos.

The meeting in Bern came hours after Amherd hosted Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, who is also on his way to the elite gathering in Davos. It was not immediately clear whether he would meet Zelenskyy there.

Zelenskyy noted China’s “significant role in the world” and said Kyiv “would very much like China to be involved in our (peace) formula and engaged in the (peace) summit.” However, he added, “not everything depends on our will … we hope that all civilized countries will be involved in the peace summit.”

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday he’s certain the United States will make good on its promise to provide billions of dollars in further aid for Kyiv to continue its fight against Russia, and he bluntly replied “No,” to a question about whether his country might lose the war.

Speaking at an end-of-year news conference in Kyiv, Zelenskyy also dismissed suggestions that Moscow’s forces have come out of 2023 on top after mostly beating back Ukraine’s counteroffensive and stepping up its military production.

“Russia failed to achieve any of its goals” this year, he said, although he conceded Ukraine still faces “lots of challenges” after expending Western military hardware in the counteroffensive that failed to make an impression on the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line.

The U.S. Congress has left town for the holidays without a deal to send some $61 billion to Ukraine, and the U.S. Defense Department says it is almost out of money to help Kyiv after almost 22 months of fighting. The European Union, too, had to push into the new year a plan to supply Ukraine with $54.5 billion after a veto from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

But Zelenskyy insisted he isn’t worried.

“I am confident that the U.S. will not let us down and that what we have agreed with the U.S. will be fulfilled,” Zelenskyy said.

Western support is crucial for Ukraine’s fight against its bigger and better armed neighbor, and the U.S. is by far the biggest single source of help. Russia still outguns and outnumbers Kyiv’s forces.

Ukraine has received additional U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air systems and advanced NASAMS anti-aircraft systems, providing medium- to long-range defense against Russian missile attacks, Zelenskyy said, declining to elaborate.

Those weapons will help fend off expected Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid over the winter.

While Zelenskyy was upbeat about receiving further military and financial help from European Union countries, he was less optimistic about Ukraine’s chances of joining NATO.

“NATO is the most powerful option for us. But we’re not invited to NATO yet,” he said. “All these signals about our membership so far are nonsense. We didn’t receive a solid offer, not from a single partner of ours. It is hard to imagine at this point, how this can happen.”

Ukraine’s military wants to mobilize up to 500,000 more troops, Zelenskyy said, but he said he has asked the top brass to spell out the details on what is “a very sensitive matter” before deciding whether to grant their wish.

Such a major mobilization would cost Ukraine the equivalent of $13.4 billion, Zelenskyy said. Other aspects to be considered include whether troops currently on the front would be rotated or allowed home leave.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry statistics say the Ukrainian military had nearly 800,000 troops in October. That doesn’t include National Guard or other units. In total, 1 million Ukrainians are in uniform.

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military to increase the number of troops by nearly 170,000 to a total of 1.32 million.

The front line has barely budged this year as a Ukrainian counteroffensive ran up against sturdy Russian defenses. Now, with winter setting in, troop movements are being slowed by bad weather, placing greater emphasis on artillery, missiles and drones.

Putin said earlier Tuesday that the Kremlin’s forces have taken the initiative in Ukraine and are well positioned for the coming year.

“We are effectively doing what we think is needed, doing what we want,” Putin told the Russian military brass. “Where our commanders consider it necessary to stick to active defenses they are doing so, and we are improving our positions where it’s needed.”

But Zelenskyy insisted Moscow had failed in its efforts to occupy more of Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022.

It wasn’t possible to independently verify battlefield claims by either side.

In other developments Tuesday:

— The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said his agency has confirmed more than 10,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion started. The number includes more than 560 children, he said.

“The true toll is probably substantially higher,” he said.

Türk also said his office is investigating six new reported cases of Russian soldiers allegedly killing civilians in Ukraine.

Since the start of the war, the Russian military has repeatedly used missiles to blast civilian targets, with devastating consequences.

— The toll the war is taking on Ukraine’s economy was clear in figures published Tuesday that showed the volume of goods exports through November was 19.3% lower than in the same period last year.

The drop was due largely to Russia’s “blockade of seaports and Russian attacks on our export transport logistics,” Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko tweeted.

However, a recent uptick in sea exports came after Ukraine created a temporary grain corridor in the Black Sea and introduced a ship insurance mechanism, she said, adding that the growth bodes well for next year.

— Russian shelling late Tuesday wounded a woman and three children in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said in a Telegram update. Two other civilians also were wounded in the Sumy region of northern Ukraine, which borders Russia, according to the local military administration.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will arrive on Capitol Hill to a darker mood than when he swooped in last winter for a hero’s welcome, as the Russian invasion is grinding into a third year and U.S. funding hangs in balance.

Zelenskyy’s visit Tuesday comes as President Joe Biden’s request for an additional $110 billion U.S. aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs is at serious risk of collapse in Congress. Republicans are insisting on strict U.S.-Mexico border security changes that Democrats decry as draconian in exchange for the overseas aid.

“It is maddening,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a close ally of Biden, of the stalemate. “A very bad message to the world, to the Ukrainian people.”

The White House said the time was right for Zelenskyy’s trip to Washington as Biden pushes lawmakers to approve the aid package before the year-end holidays. But the mood turned grim at the Capitol on the eve of his arrival.

Zelenskyy will meet privately with senators and new House Speaker Mike Johnson, then talk with Biden at the White House as the once robust bipartisan support for Ukraine was slipping further out of reach.

Ahead of Zelenskyy’s high-stakes meetings, the White House late Monday pointed to newly declassified intelligence that shows Ukraine has inflicted heavy losses on Russia in recent fighting along the Avdiivka-Novopavlivka axis — including 13,000 casualties and over 220 combat vehicle losses. The Ukrainian holdout in the country’s partly-occupied east has been the center of some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks.

U.S. intelligence officials have determined that the Russians think if they can achieve a military deadlock through the winter it will drain Western support for Ukraine and ultimately give Russia the advantage, despite the fact that Russians have sustained heavy losses and have been slowed by persistent shortages of trained personnel, munitions, and equipment.

“Russia is determined to press forward with its offensive despite its losses. It is more critical now than ever that we maintain our support for Ukraine so they can continue to hold the line and regain their territory,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson. She added that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is clearly watching what happens in Congress — and we need Congress to act this month to support Ukraine in its time of need.”

Republicans in Congress, fueled by Johnson’s far-right flank in the House, have taken on an increasingly isolationist stance in U.S. foreign policy, demanding changes to American border and immigration policies in exchange for any funds to battle Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Biden has expressed a willingness to engage with the Republicans as migrant crossings have hit record highs along the U.S.-Mexico border, but Democrats in his own party oppose the proposals for expedited deportations and strict asylum standards as a return to Trump-era hostility towards migrants.

With talks at a standstill, one chief Republican negotiator, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, said there was nothing Zelenskyy could say during his visit with the senators to sway the outcome.

“Hey, pay attention to us, but not your own country? No,” Lankford told reporters. “We’ve got to be able to deal with all these things together.”

Zelenskyy, who visited Washington just months ago in September when the aid package was first being considered, is making his third trip to the Capitol since the war broke out in February 2022.

His surprise arrival days before Christmas last December was Zelenskyy’s first wartime trip out of Ukraine and he received thunderous applause in Congress. Lawmakers sported the blue-and-yellow colors of Ukraine, and Zelenskyy, delivering a speech that drew on the parallels to World War II as he thanked Americans for their support, presented the country’s flag signed by frontline troops to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

But 2023 brought a new power center of hard-right Republicans, many aligned with Donald Trump, the former president who is now the GOP front-runner in the 2024 race for the White House.

New Speaker Johnson, on the job since October when Republicans ousted their previous leader Kevin McCarthy, has spoken publicly in favor of aiding Ukraine, as has Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. But it’s not certain they can steer an aid package through the House’s right flank.

Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Zelenskyy has an opportunity to impress on Johnson in their private talk “the moral clarity and why is Ukraine important.”

He said Zelenskyy could shake up the stalemate in Congress by reminding Johnson and the senators, “If we abandon our NATO allies and Ukraine, like we did in Afghanistan, we’re just going to invite more aggression and embolden and empower our adversaries.”

Zelenskyy kicked off the quick visit to Washington on Monday, warning in a speech at a defense university that Russia may be fighting in Ukraine but its “real target is freedom” in America and around the world.

“If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it’s just Putin and his sick clique,” Zelenskyy told an audience of military leaders and students at the National Defense University on Monday.

He noted that on this day 82 years ago the U.S. went to combat in Europe, as then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the declaration of war against Germany. Now, he said, though the U.S. has no troops on the ground in Ukraine, it is supplying critically needed weapons and equipment.

Of the new $110 billion national security package, $61.4 billion would go toward Ukraine — with about half, some $30 billion, going to the Defense Department to replenish weaponry it is supplying to Ukraine, and the other half for humanitarian assistance and to help the Ukrainian government function with emergency responders, public works and other operations.

The package includes another nearly $14 billion for Israel as it fights Hamas and $14 billion for U.S. border security. Additional funds would go for national security needs in the Asia-Pacific region.

The U.S. has already provided Ukraine $111 billion for its fight against Russia’s 2022 invasion.

“Putin still aims to conquer the country of Ukraine and subjugate its people,” Watson said.

The White House has been more engaged with Congress, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in some discussions, according to a person familiar with the talks and granted anonymity to discuss them. But Republicans said the Democrats did not respond to their latest offer.

Border security talks have focused on making it more difficult for migrants to claim asylum and releasing fewer migrants temporarily into the U.S. while they await proceedings to determine if they can remain more permanently.

Republicans have also proposed allowing the president to shutter parts of the border when crossings reach high numbers, as they have for the past two years. One White House idea would expand the ability to conduct expedited deportations, drawing alarm from immigrant advocates.

As border talks drag, Biden’s budget director said last week that the U.S. will run out of funding to send weapons and assistance to Ukraine by the end of the year, which would “kneecap” Ukraine on the battlefield.

According to the Defense Department, there is about $4.8 billion remaining in presidential drawdown authority, which pulls weapons from existing U.S. stockpiles and sends them quickly to the war front, and about $1.1 billion left in funding to replenish the U.S. military stockpiles.

___ Associated Press writers Lolita Baldor, Tara Copp and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Days before potentially crossing paths with Russia’s top diplomat at the United Nations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested Monday that the world body needs to answer for allowing his country’s invader a seat at the tables of power.

“For us, it’s very important that all our words, all our messages, will be heard by our partners. And if in the United Nations still — it’s a pity, but still — there is a place for Russian terrorists, the question is not to me. I think it’s a question to all the members of the United Nations,” Zelenskyy said after visiting wounded Ukrainian military members at a New York hospital.

He had just arrived in the U.S. to make his country’s case to the world and to Washington for continued help in trying to repel Russia’s invasion, nearly 19 months into what has become a grinding war.

Ukraine’s Western allies have supplied weapons and other assistance, and the U.S. Congress is currently weighing President Joe Biden’s request to provide as much as $24 billion more in military and humanitarian aid.

U.S. lawmakers are increasingly divided over providing additional money to Ukraine. Zelenskyy is scheduled to spend some time Thursday on Capitol Hill and meet with Biden at the White House.

Before that, Zelenskyy is due to address world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday and speak Wednesday at a U.N. Security Council meeting about Ukraine. Russia is a permanent, veto-wielding member of the council, and Foreign Minister Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to make remarks.

Asked whether he’d stay in the room to listen, Zelenskyy said, “I don’t know how it will be, really.”

Zelenskyy has taken the United Nations to task before — even before the war launched by a neighbor that, as a Security Council member, is entrusted with maintaining international peace and security. In one memorable example, he lamented at the General Assembly in 2021 that the U.N. was ”a retired superhero who’s long forgotten how great they once were.”

Traveling to the U.S. for the first time since December, he began his trip with a stop at Staten Island University Hospital. The medical facility has, to date, treated 18 Ukrainian military members who lost limbs in the war, said Michael J. Dowling, the CEO of hospital parent company Northwell Health.

With help from a New Jersey-based charity called Kind Deeds, the injured have gotten fitted for prostheses and are undergoing outpatient physical therapy.

Zelenskyy greeted several injured troops as they exercised in a rehab gym. He asked about their wounds, wished them a speedy recovery and thanked them for their service.

“How are you doing? Is it difficult?” Zelenskyy asked one military member, who paused and then said it was OK.

“Stay strong,” Zelenskyy replied, later telling the group their country was grateful and proud of them.

Later, in a hospital conference room, he awarded medals to the injured, posed for photos, signed a large Ukrainian flag and thanked medical personnel and the injured troops.

“We all will be waiting for you back home,” he said. “We absolutely need every one of you.”

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VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — NATO leaders said Tuesday that they would allow Ukraine to join the alliance “when allies agree and conditions are met” — a pronouncement that came just hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blasted the organization’s failure to set a timetable for his country as “absurd.”

Instead, alliance leaders decided to remove obstacles on Ukraine’s membership path so that it can join more quickly once the war with Russia is over.

“We reaffirmed Ukraine will become a member of NATO and agreed to remove the requirement for a membership action plan,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters, referring to a key step in the process that involves advice and assistance for countries seeking to join.

“This will change Ukraine’s membership path from a two-step path to a one-step path,” Stoltenberg said.

Although many NATO members have funneled arms and ammunition to Zelenskyy’s forces, there is no consensus among the 31 allies for admitting Ukraine into NATO’s ranks.

Zelenskyy pushed back sharply against the decision as he headed to the annual NATO summit in Vilnius.

“It’s unprecedented and absurd when a time frame is set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership,” Zelenskyy tweeted. “While at the same time, vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine. It seems there is no readiness to invite Ukraine to NATO or to make it a member of the Alliance.”

NATO membership would afford Ukraine protection against a giant neighbor that annexed its Crimean Peninsula almost a decade ago and more recently seized vast swaths of land in the east and south. Joining NATO would also oblige Kyiv to reform its security institutions, improve governance and curb corruption — work that would also ease the country’s path into the European Union.

Asked about Zelenskyy’s concerns, Stoltenberg said the most important thing now is to ensure that his country wins the war, because “unless Ukraine prevails there is no membership to be discussed at all.”

The broadside from Zelenskyy could renew tensions at the summit shortly after it saw a burst of goodwill following an agreement by Turkey to advance Sweden’s bid to join NATO. Allies hope to resolve the seesawing negotiations and create a clear plan for the alliance and its support for Ukraine.

The Ukrainian president, who was to meet Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders, expressed deep frustration in an emotional speech in downtown Vilnius.

“Today I started my journey with faith in solutions, with faith in strong partners, with faith in NATO … in a NATO that does not hesitate, that does not waste time and does not look over their backs at any aggressor,” Zelenskyy said.

“I would like this faith to become confidence, confidence in the decisions that we deserve, all of us — every soldier, every citizen, every mother, every child,” he said. “Is that too much to ask?”

Sharp divisions have emerged within the alliance over Ukraine’s desire to join NATO, which was promised back in 2008 even though few steps were taken toward that goal.

In addition, the Baltic states — including Lithuania, which is hosting the summit — have pushed for a strong show of support and a clear pathway toward membership for Ukraine.

However, the United States and Germany urged caution. Biden said last week that Ukraine was not ready to join. Members of NATO, he told CNN, need to “meet all the qualifications, from democratization to a whole range of other issues,” a nod toward longstanding concerns about governance and corruption in Kyiv.

In addition, some fear that bringing Ukraine into NATO would serve more as a provocation to Russia than as a deterrence against aggression.

Concretely, NATO leaders decided to launch a series of multiyear programs to bring Ukraine’s Soviet-era military equipment and doctrines up to modern standards so the country can operate fully with the alliance.

On Wednesday, the leaders and Zelenskyy are set to launch a new, upgraded forum for their cooperation: a NATO-Ukraine Council, where all parties can convene crisis talks if their security is threatened.

To fast-track its future membership, the leaders agreed to do away with a membership action plan for Ukraine, a program often seen as mandatory for aspiring nations to undertake.

Known in NATO parlance as a MAP, the action plan involves a tailor-made package of advice, assistance and practical support for countries preparing to join NATO. Bosnia, for example, is currently taking part in one.

Pressed by reporters to say what kind of conditions are being placed on Ukraine joining, Stoltenberg said: “We want modern defense and security institutions.”

The dispute over Ukraine stands in contrast to a hard-fought agreement to advance Sweden’s membership. The deal was reached after days of intensive meetings, and it’s poised to expand the alliance’s strength in Northern Europe.

“Rumors of the death of NATO’s unity were greatly exaggerated,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters triumphantly on Tuesday.

According to a joint statement issued when the deal was announced, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will ask Turkey’s parliament to approve Sweden joining NATO.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, another holdout, is expected to take a similar step. Hungary’s foreign minister said Tuesday that his country’s ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership was now just a “technical matter.” Erdogan has not yet commented publicly.

The outcome is a victory as well for Biden, who has touted NATO’s expansion as an example of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has backfired on Moscow.

Finland has already become the 31st member of the alliance, and Sweden is on deck to become the 32nd. Both Nordic countries were historically nonaligned until the war increased fears of Russian aggression.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that NATO’s expansion is “one of the reasons that led to the current situation.”

“It looks like the Europeans don’t understand their mistake,” Peskov said. He warned against putting Ukraine on a fast track for NATO membership.

“Potentially it’s very dangerous for the European security. It carries very big risks,” Peskov said.

Erdogan met with Biden on Tuesday evening but remained mum on the deal to advance Sweden’s membership in NATO.

Although Biden made a reference to “the agreement you reached yesterday,” Erdogan said nothing about it. It was a conspicuous omission from Erdogan, who has not commented on the issue publicly during the summit.

However, Erdogan appeared eager to develop his relationship with Biden. He said previous meetings were “mere warm-ups, but now we are initiating a new process.”

The Turkish president has been seeking advanced American fighter jets and a path toward membership in the European Union. The White House has expressed support for both, but publicly insisted that the issues were not related to Sweden’s membership in NATO.

The Biden administration has backed Turkey’s desire to buy 40 new F-16s as well as modernization kits from the U.S.

Biden is on a five-day trip to Europe, with the NATO summit as its centerpiece.

After the summit ends Wednesday, he will travel to Helsinki. On Thursday, he will celebrate Finland’s recent entry into NATO and meet with Nordic leaders.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin visited command posts of his forces fighting in Ukraine for the second time in two months, officials said Tuesday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his latest trip near the front line.

The visits — on different days and in different provinces — sought to stiffen the resolve of soldiers as the war approaches its 14th month and as Kyiv readies a possible counteroffensive with Western-supplied weapons.

Some of the most significant of those weapons appeared to have recently arrived in Ukraine. Germany’s official federal government website on Tuesday listed a Patriot surface-to-air guided missile system as among the military items delivered within the past week to Ukraine.

Ukraine has been pressing for Patriots and other air defense systems from its allies for months, and Germany’s appeared to be the first to have arrived. Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat declined to confirm Tuesday that a Patriot is in Ukraine, local media outlet RBC-Ukraine reported, while stating that receiving the missiles would be a landmark event, allowing Ukrainians to knock down Russian targets at a greater distance.

Elsewhere, Kremlin video showed Putin arriving by helicopter at the command post of Russian forces in southern Ukraine’s Kherson province, then flying to the headquarters of the Russian National Guard in Luhansk province, in the country’s east. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the visits took place Monday.

Dressed in a dark suit, Putin attended briefings with his military brass on both of his stops. The locations of the military headquarters weren’t disclosed, making it impossible to assess how close they were to the front line. Nor was it possible independently to verify the video’s authenticity.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy made his latest trip to visit units in Avdiivka, an eastern city in Donetsk province where fierce battles are taking place. He heard first-hand reports about fighting and handed out awards.

Zelenskyy’s visits to areas feeling the brunt of Russia’s full-scale invasion gathered pace last month as he shuttled across the country, often by train. As with Putin, the Ukrainian president’s wartime trips usually aren’t publicized until afterward.

While official coverage of Putin’s trip showed him in mostly formal and ceremonious settings, Zelenskyy’s office issued photos showing the Ukrainian president taking selfies with soldiers, eating cake with them and drinking out of paper cups.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has become largely deadlocked, with heavy fighting in the east, particularly around the Donestk province city of Bakhmut, which for 8½ months has seen the longest and bloodiest battle so far.

Russia illegally annexed Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia provinces in September, following local referendums that Ukraine and the West denounced as shams. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak was scathing in his criticism of Putin’s trip, accusing him of “degradation” and being the author of “mass murders” in the war.

Large parts of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, as well as some areas of Luhansk province, have remained under Ukrainian control. In November, Russian forces ceded territory in Kherson province, including the region’s namesake capital.

In a related development, the Moscow-appointed governor of the occupied part of Donetsk province, Denis Pushilin, went to the Belarus capital of Minsk and won pledges of support from President Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin ally.

“The Kremlin forces Minsk to get involved in the war more actively in order to pressure Ukraine,” Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich said in a telephone interview. “It is clear that Pushilin’s visit to Minsk has been synchronized with Putin’s trip to the occupied Ukrainian regions and aims to show that the Belarusian threat hasn’t gone away.”

During his visits, Putin congratulated the military divisions on Orthodox Easter, which was celebrated Sunday, and presented them with icons. Speaking to senior officers at the Kherson headquarters, Putin handed them a copy of an Orthodox icon he said belonged to a 19th century Russian general.

The senior officers present at the meetings reflected which ones were currently in favor with Putin. Col. Gen. Mikhail Teplinsky, the chief of Russia’s airborne troops, was among the top generals at the Kherson base.

Teplinsky, a career officer who rose from lieutenant to become chief of the elite military branch, is known for being popular with his troops. Last fall, however, he was temporarily relieved of his position amid a spat with the military brass. He was restored to the job this year, and his meeting with Putin indicated he was back in favor.

A senior officer who greeted Putin in the Luhansk region, Col. Gen. Alexander Lapin, also was relieved of his duties as commanding officer in northeastern Ukraine after he was blamed for a hasty Russian pullback from parts of Kharkiv province in the face of a Ukrainian counteroffensive in September. Lapin was later named as chief of staff of the ground forces, and his meeting with Putin signaled he had the president’s trust.

Putin’s and Pushilin’s trips came as Ukraine is preparing a new counteroffensive to reclaim occupied territories, possibly using the newly arrived Patriot.

In addition to Germany, the United States and Netherlands have pledged to provide Patriots, and a group of 65 Ukrainian soldiers trained in Oklahoma last month on how to use them.

The Patriot is a surface-to-air guided missile system first deployed in the 1980s that can target aircraft, cruise missiles and shorter-range ballistic missiles. A Patriot missile battery typically includes six mobile launchers, a mobile radar, a power generator and an engagement control center. Zelenskyy has said Ukraine needs at least 20 Patriot batteries.

Ukrainian officials have said they’re depleting Russian forces in eastern Ukraine while preparing for a counteroffensive.

Meanwhile, at least three civilians were killed and 11 wounded in Ukraine between Monday and Tuesday, according to Zelenskyy’s office. Most of the casualties occurred in the Donbas, the eastern region made up of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, the office said. Six people were wounded in artillery fire in the city of Kherson.

In another in a series of possible cross-border attacks into Russia, a drone a Russian official said was sent from Ukraine hit a military office in the Bryansk town of Novozybkov. Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram that the building was damaged and no one was hurt. Ukrainian officials, in keeping with past practice, didn’t comment on the incident.

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Associated Press Writer Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, and Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv contributed.

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DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told political leaders at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos that supplies of Western weapons must come quicker than Russia’s attacks, urging the world to move faster because “tragedies are outpacing life; the tyranny is outpacing democracy.”

Zelenskyy, speaking by video link from Kyiv, said the world needs to react more rapidly to challenges like global security, climate change, hunger and energy, warning that in the war, “the time the free world uses to think is used by the terrorist state to kill.”

He said his allies must not hesitate: “The supplying of Ukraine with air defense systems must outpace Russia’s vast missile attacks. The supplies of Western tanks must outpace another invasion of Russian tanks.”

Zelenskyy’s spoke after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the world as being in a “sorry state” because of interlinked challenges including climate change and Russia’s war in Ukraine that are “piling up like cars in a chain reaction crash.”

The gloom hung on the second day of the elite gathering of world leaders and corporate executives in the Swiss ski resort of Davos after a helicopter crashed into a kindergarten in Ukraine, killing more than a dozen people, including Ukraine’s interior minister.

Zelenskyy stood and asked for a moment of silence for the victims. There was no immediate word on the cause of the crash, but he said that “every individual, every death is a result of war.”

His wife, first lady Olena Zelenska, earlier called it “another very sad day,” dabbing teary eyes, then telling Davos attendees that “we can also change this negative situation for the better.”

The Ukrainian delegation to Davos, including Zelenska, has been pushing for more aid, including increasingly advanced weapons, from international allies to fight Russia.

Shortly before Zelenskyy spoke, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reiterated that Germany was one of the top suppliers of military equipment to Ukraine when asked why he had not sent tanks to the war-torn country.

While Germany has provided air-defense systems and armored personnel carriers, Scholz — the only leader to attend Davos from the Group of 7 biggest economies — is facing increasing pressure to send Leopard 2 battle tanks to help Ukraine.

“We will continue to support Ukraine – for as long as necessary,” Scholz said.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine’s Western backers this week will discuss ways to supply heavier and more advanced weapons.

“The main message there will be: more support, more advanced support, heavier weapons and more modern weapons,” Stoltenberg said of a gathering in Germany of top defense officials, including U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who work to coordinate military contributions to Ukraine.

“This is a fight for our values, this is a fight for democracy — and we just have to prove that democracy wins over tyranny and oppression,” the NATO leader added.

Meanwhile, Guterres said the “gravest levels of geopolitical division and mistrust in generations” are undermining efforts to tackle global problems, including widening inequality, a cost-of-living crisis sparked by soaring inflation and an energy crunch, lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply-chain disruptions and more.

The U.N. chief singled out climate change as an “existential challenge,” and said a global commitment to limit the Earth’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius “is nearly going up in smoke.”

Guterres, who has been one of the most outspoken world figures on climate change, referenced a recent study that found scientists at Exxon Mobil made remarkably accurate predictions about the effects of climate change as far back as the 1970s, even as the company’s stance publicly raised doubts about whether global warming was real.

“We learned last week that certain fossil fuel producers were fully aware in the 1970s that their core product was baking our planet,” he said in his speech. “Some in Big Oil peddled the big lie.”

Critics have questioned the impact of the four-day meeting where politicians, CEOs and other leaders discuss the world’s problems — and make deals on the sidelines — but where concrete action is harder to measure. Environmentalists, for example, slam the carbon-spewing private jets that ferry in bigwigs to an event that prioritizes the battle against climate change.

Government officials, corporate titans, academics and activists attended dozens of panel sessions Wednesday on topics covering the metaverse, environmental greenwashing and artificial intelligence.

Ukraine has taken center stage as the anniversary of the start of the war nears. When Zelenskyy was asked about engaging in a dialogue with Russia, he said that “they will have to recognize their own mistakes, they will have to recognize Ukrainian statutes and they will have to really respect our territorial integrity.”

NATO’s leader says supplying Ukraine more equipment long term will help force Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate.

“It is very dangerous to underestimate Russia,” Stoltenberg warned. “Weapons — they are the way to peace” but they must come quickly.

Zelenskyy has daily pleaded for more advanced weapons, escalating his requests as Russia introduces new tactics and weapons against the much smaller Ukrainian army. Western countries have heeded the calls, although often with a delay and not in the number sought.

Guterres was not optimistic that the conflict being waged less than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from Davos would end soon.

“I do not see the end of the war in the immediate future,” he said. Deep historical differences between Russia and Ukraine make it more difficult to find a solution based on international law and that respects territorial integrity, he added.

“For the moment, I don’t think that we have a chance to promote or to mediate a serious negotiation to achieve peace in the short term,” Guterres said.

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AP journalists Masha Macpherson and David Keyton in Davos and Kelvin Chan in London contributed.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s president has suggested he’s open to peace talks with Russia, softening his refusal to negotiate with Moscow as long as President Vladimir Putin is in power while sticking to Kyiv’s core demands.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appeal to the international community to “force Russia into real peace talks” reflected a change in rhetoric. In late September, after Russia illegally annexed four Ukrainian regions, he signed a decree stating “the impossibility of holding talks” with Putin.

But the preconditions the Ukrainian leader listed late Monday appear to be non-starters for Moscow, so it’s hard to see how Zelenskyy’s latest comments would advance any talks.

Zelenskyy reiterated that his conditions for dialogue were the return of all of Ukraine’s occupied lands, compensation for war damage and the prosecution of war crimes. He didn’t specify how world leaders should coerce Russia into talks.

Western weapons and aid have been key to Ukraine’s ability to fight off Russia’s invasion, which some initially expected would tear through the country with relative ease. That means Kyiv cannot ignore how the war is seen in the U.S. and the European Union, according to political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.

“Zelenskyy is trying to maneuver because the promise of negotiations does not oblige Kyiv to anything, but it makes it possible to maintain the support of Western partners,” Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta Center independent think tank, said.

“A categorical refusal to hold talks plays into the Kremlin’s hands, so Zelenskyy is changing the tactics and talks about the possibility of a dialogue, but on conditions that make it all very clear,” he added.

While support for Ukraine has garnered strong bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, a growing conservative opposition could complicate that next year if Republicans take control of the House in Tuesday’s elections.

Recent comments by Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy that lawmakers would not cut a “blank check” to Ukraine reflect the party’s growing skepticism about the cost of support.

In private, Republican lawmakers who support aid to Ukraine see an opportunity to pass one more tranche of assistance this year with the current Congress.

Russia and Ukraine held several rounds of talks in Belarus and Turkey early in the war, which is now nearing its nine-month mark, and Zelenskyy repeatedly called for a personal meeting with Putin — which the Kremlin brushed off.

The talks stalled after the last meeting of the delegations, held in Istanbul in March, yielded no results.

Zelenskyy said Monday that Kyiv has “repeatedly proposed (talks) and to which we always received crazy Russian responses with new terrorist attacks, shelling or blackmail.”

Russia resumed calls for talks after it started losing ground to a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east and the south in September. Zelenskyy rejected the possibility of negotiating with Putin later that month after the Russian leader illegally claimed four regions of Ukraine as Russian territory.

Zelenskyy said Monday that Ukraine’s conditions for dialogue included the “restoration of (Ukraine’s) territorial integrity … compensation for all war damage, punishment for every war criminal and guarantees that it will not happen again.”

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, said Tuesday that Moscow was not setting any conditions for the resumption of talks. He accused Kyiv of lacking “good will.”

“This is their choice. We have always declared our readiness for such negotiations,” Rudenko said.

Putin and other Russian officials have repeatedly claimed that the United States is preventing Ukraine from engaging in peace talks, which several countries have offered to mediate.

In an interview released Tuesday, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said Western countries wouldn’t push Kyiv to negotiate on Moscow’s terms.

“Ukraine is receiving rather effective weapons from its partners, first and foremost the U.S.,” Podolyak said. “We’re pushing the Russian army out of our territory. And given that, it’s nonsense to force us to negotiate, and de facto to concede to Russia’s ultimatum! No one will do that.”

In other developments:

— In the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, which the Russians are struggling to take full control of, Moscow’s shelling killed three civilians and wounded seven others over the past 24 hours, according to Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko.

Kyrylenko said the fatalities occurred in the city of Bakhmut, a key target of Russia’s grinding offensive in Donetsk, and the town of Krasnohorivka. Ukraine’s deputy defense minister last week described the Bakhmut area as “the epicenter” of fighting in eastern Ukraine.

— Elsewhere, two civilians were seriously wounded by unexploded mines in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, where Kyiv’s forces retook broad swaths of territory in September, Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.

— In the partially occupied Kherson region in the south, where Ukraine’s troops are conducting a successful counteroffensive, Russian-installed authorities said they have completed the evacuation of residents ahead of anticipated Ukrainian advances. The Kremlin-appointed administration has sought to relocate tens of thousands.

— Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show a rapid expansion of a cemetery in southern Ukraine in the months after Russian forces seized the port city of Mariupol. It’s unclear how many people were buried there.

— The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations reassured Ukrainian farmers that extending a wartime deal that allowed Ukrainian grain and other commodities to be shipped on the Black Sea was a priority for the U.N.

The agreement brokered by the U.N. and Turkey has allowed more than 10 million tons of grain to leave Ukrainian ports and travel along a designated corridor. It is set to expire on Nov. 19. A Russian diplomat on Tuesday cited Moscow’s dissatisfaction with its implementation and said the Kremlin had not decided whether to extend it.

During a visit to Kyiv, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield was asked whether she was telling the Ukrainians about American ideas to end the war. She replied: “Russia started this and Russia can end this, and they can end it by pulling their troops out and stopping committing the atrocities that they are committing against the Ukrainian people.”

She announced $25 million in additional U.S. assistance to help Ukrainians get through the winter.

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BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Russians of gruesome atrocities in Ukraine and told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that those responsible should immediately be brought up on war crimes charges in front of a tribunal like the one established at Nuremberg after World War II.

Over the past few days, grisly images of what appeared to be intentional killings of civilians carried out by Russian forces in Bucha and other towns before they withdrew from the outskirts of Kyiv have caused a global outcry and led Western nations to expel scores of Moscow’s diplomats and propose further sanctions, including a ban on coal imports from Russia.

Zelenskyy, speaking via video from Ukraine to U.N. diplomats, said that civilians had been tortured, shot in the back of the head, thrown down wells, blown up with grenades in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.

“They cut off limbs, cut their throats. Women were raped and killed in front of their children,” he said. He asserted that people’s tongues were pulled out “only because their aggressor did not hear what they wanted to hear from them.”

Zelenskyy said that both those who carried out the killings and those who gave the orders “must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes” in front of a tribunal similar to what was used in postwar Germany.

Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said that while Bucha was under Russian control, “not a single local person has suffered from any violent action.” Reiterating what the Kremlin has contended for days, he said that video footage of bodies in the streets was “a crude forgery” staged by the Ukrainians.

“You only saw what they showed you,” he said. “The only ones who would fall for this are Western dilettantes.”

As Zelenskyy spoke to the diplomats, survivors of the monthlong Russian occupation took investigators to body after body of townspeople allegedly shot down by troops. Others simply surveyed the destruction.

In Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv, 25-year-old, Dmitriy Yevtushkov searched the rubble of apartment buildings and found that only a photo album remained from his family’s home. In the besieged southern city of Mykolaiv, a passerby stopped briefly to look at the bright blossoms of a shattered flower stand lying among bloodstains, the legacy of a Russian shell that killed nine. The onlooker sketched out the sign of the cross in the air, and moved on.

Associated Press journalists in Bucha have counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes and interviewed Ukrainians who told of witnessing atrocities. Also, high-resolution satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed that many of the bodies had been lying in the open for weeks, during the time that Russian forces were in the town.

The dead in Bucha included a pile of six charred bodies, as witnessed by AP journalists. It was not clear who they were or under what circumstances they died. One body was probably that of a child, said Andrii Nebytov, head of police in the Kyiv region. A gunshot wound to the head was visible on one.

The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court at The Hague opened an investigation a month ago into possible war crimes in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy stressed that Bucha was only one place and that there are more with similar horrors — a warning echoed by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Stoltenberg, meanwhile, warned that in pulling back from the capital, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military is regrouping its forces in order to deploy them to eastern and southern Ukraine for a “crucial phase of the war.” Russia’s stated goal currently is control of the Donbas, the largely Russian-speaking industrial region in the east that includes the shattered port city of Mariupol.

“Moscow is not giving up its ambitions in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.

While both Ukrainian and Russian representatives sent optimistic signals following their latest round of talks a week ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow won’t accept a Ukrainian demand that a prospective peace deal include an immediate pullout of troops followed by a Ukrainian referendum on the agreement.

In televised remarks Tuesday, Lavrov said a new deal would have to be negotiated if the vote failed, and “we don’t want to play such cat and mouse.”

Ukrainian officials said that the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv that were recaptured from Russian forces and that a “torture chamber” was discovered in Bucha.

Zelenskyy told the Security Council there was “not a single crime” that Russian troops hadn’t committed in Bucha.

“The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our country. They shot and killed women outside their houses when they just tried to call someone who is alive. They killed entire families, adults and children, and they tried to burn the bodies,” he said. They used tanks to crush civilians “just for their pleasure,” he said.

On Tuesday, police and other investigators walked the silent streets of Bucha. Survivors who hid in their homes during the Russian occupation of the town, many of them past middle age, wandered past charred tanks and jagged window panes with plastic bags of food and other humanitarian aid. Red Cross workers checked in on intact homes.

Many of the dead seen by AP journalists appeared to have been shot at close range, and some had their hands bound or their flesh burned.

The AP and the PBS series “Frontline” have jointly verified at least 90 incidents during the war that appear to violate international law. The War Crimes Watch Ukraine project is looking into apparent targeted attacks as well as indiscriminate ones.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the images from Bucha revealed “not the random act of a rogue unit” but “a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities.” He said the reports of atrocities were “more than credible.”

“Only non-humans are capable of this,” said Angelica Chernomor, a refugee from Kyiv who crossed into Poland with her two children and saw the photos from Bucha. “Even if people live under a totalitarian regime, they must retain feelings, dignity, but they do not.”

Chernomor is among the more than 4 million Ukrainians who have fled the country in the wake of the Feb. 24 invasion.

Russia has rejected similar accusations of atrocities in the past by accusing its enemies of forging photos and video and using so-called crisis actors.

As Western leaders condemned the killings in Bucha, Romania, Italy, Spain and Denmark expelled dozens of Russian diplomats on Tuesday, following moves by Germany and France. Hundreds of Russian diplomats have been sent home since the start of the invasion, many accused of being spies.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the expulsions a “short-sighted” measure that would complicate communication and warned they would be met with “reciprocal steps.”

The U.S., in coordination with the European Union and Group of Seven nations, will roll out more sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, including a ban on all new investment in the country, a senior administration official said, speaking on condition to discuss the upcoming announcement.

Also, the EU’s executive branch proposed a ban on coal imports from Russia, in what would be the first time the 27-nation bloc has sanctioned the country’s lucrative energy industry over the war. The coal imports amount to an estimated 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) per year.

Just hours before the latest proposal was announced, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that to prevent “new Buchas,” the West must impose the “mother of all sanctions” — on Russian oil and gas.

“A few months of tightening your belts are worth thousands of saved lives,” he said.

But Western nations are divided over how far to go. While some are calling for a boycott of Russian oil and gas, Germany and others fear that such a move could plunge the continent into a severe economic crisis.

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