NYT - Russia - Ukraine War Briefing March 18,2022

 

March 18, 2022

By Carole Landry Editor/Writer, Briefings Team

Good evening. This is your Russia-Ukraine War Briefing, a weeknight guide to the latest news and analysis about the conflict.

Bidens warns China: Don’t help Russia

During a two-hour video call today, President Biden told Xi Jinping, China’s leader, that there would be “consequences” if China provided aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

U.S. intelligence agencies have said that Russia has already requested military and economic aid from Beijing.

Biden “described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians,” a White House statement said. A U.S. official declined to give details on the warnings delivered by Biden, but the implication was that the U.S. could impose sanctions on China.

According to China’s own readout from the call, Xi told Biden that the “Ukraine crisis is something we don’t want to see,” adding: “Conflict and confrontation are not in anyone’s interest. Peace and security are what the international community should treasure the most.”

It was the first call between Xi and Biden since the invasion began on Feb. 24 and came at a critical moment in the war, as Russia seeks to take Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and expand control of the southern coast.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday that because of China’s close ties to Russia, it had a special responsibility to persuade President Vladimir Putin to end his war.

China analysts doubt Xi will distance himself from Putin. The two have met 38 times as national leaders and made their bond highly personal. They share a major strategic interest in trying to weaken American power. At their last meeting, just two weeks before Putin’s invasion, they issued a 5,000-word statement that said their partnership had “no limits” and denounced the U.S.-led order.

Still, Xi has stopped far short of endorsing the assault on Ukraine, even as Chinese officials have blamed the U.S. for the war and echoed Putin in criticizing NATO.

And in recent days, Chinese state-run news media appears to be subtly shifting its tone on the war, focusing slightly less on Russia’s military might, observers say, and slightly more on peace talks and the civilian toll of Russian strikes.

Ukrainian fighters training to use a British-provided NLAW antitank weapon.Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

How Ukraine is killing Russian tanks

Russian forces greatly outnumber the Ukrainian army and have far superior weaponry. But as tanks roll across Ukraine’s winding roads, they have become vulnerable to devastating ambushes by Ukrainian troops.

Videos of these attacks often show Ukrainian soldiers carrying large green tubes slung on their backs — they are NLAWs, for Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon.

Weapons designers have spent decades working on portable guided missiles that seem to have evened the balance of power between soldiers and tanks, writes my colleague John Ismay.

NLAWs employ two explosive charges in their warheads, to penetrate an outer layer of armor and then punch through into the crew compartment. They can also be programmed to hit a target from above — where a tank or armored personnel carrier has the least armor.

Britain has sent more than 4,200 NLAWs to Ukraine, according to a British diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. Their use is seen as a factor in the Russian military’s inability to capture major Ukrainian cities.

Compared to the U.S.-made Javelin, which the Biden administration has sent by the thousands, the NLAW weighs about half as much, costs far less, can be easily discarded and is best used in the relatively short-range fights between Ukrainian soldiers and Russian forces.

While the Javelin is better at killing tanks from as far away as two and a half miles, its missile flies slower than that of the NLAW, which is most accurate for targets up to only about a half mile away.

The NLAW is a product of the Swedish company Saab and has been sold to a number of NATO countries — including Britain, which assembles the missiles at a factory in Belfast.

As the war enters its fourth week, the British defense intelligence service said today that Russian forces had “made minimal progress this week” and that Ukrainian forces around the capital, Kyiv, had continued to frustrate Russian attempts to encircle the city.

For more about the state of the battlefield, read this interactive article from The Financial Times breaking down the first phase of the war. It describes how Russia’s invasion foundered on three fronts because of its own tactical shortcomings and fierce Ukrainian resistance. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- At least 130 people survived the Russian attack on a theater in the southern city of Mariupol, a Ukrainian official said. Hundreds remain unaccounted for. Several Russian missiles destroyed an aircraft repair plant in the western city of Lviv. Tens of thousands of people rallied in a Moscow stadium in support of President Vladimir Putin. These maps show Russian troop movements and Ukrainian lines of resistance. Follow our live updates.