'No one can today can predict how long this war will last,' Zelenskyy says; Negotiations ongoing for evacuations: Live updates

Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas and John Barrasso of Wyoming joined McConnell in Kyiv.Ukraine has made progress in retaking areas formerly held by Russian forces, but the length of the Russia's war will depend on the assistance offered by Ukrainian allies, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.Although Ukrainians are doing everything they can to resist and drive out Russia, “no one today can predict how long this war will last," Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Friday.“This will depend, unfortunately, not only on our people, who are already giving their maximum," he said. Western officials said Ukraine had driven Russian forces back around Kharkiv, which was a key target for Moscow’s troops.CONGRESSIONAL AID:Sen. Rand Paul stalls $40 billion in aid for Ukraine, breaking with Mitch McConnellIn a video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian forces have downed 200 Russian military planes since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.“Russia hasn’t lost so much aviation in any of the wars in decades,” he said. The Ukrainian president also claimed 27,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and more than 3,000 tanks, armored vehicles and drones destroyed since the war began, though USA TODAY could not independently verify those numbers, adding that Russia’s “perspective as a state” has been destroyed, as well.Kyiv’s city council will rename the city’s well-known “People’s Friendship Arch” as “The Arch of Freedom of the Ukrainian People,” Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko wrote on Telegram Saturday.An additional 40 monuments and memorial signs will also be removed from Ukraine’s capital city and given to its Museum of Totalitarianism.Specialists from institutions like the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Institute of National Memory will weigh in on other renamings, like changes from Russian names to Ukrainian ones, and those names can be voted on by the people of the city.“New names should live for tens or even hundreds of years,” Klitzchko said. I am just a regular citizen of this country as all the other guys that are at war right now." Read more.– Nolan KingWEISSENHAUS, Germany — The Group of Seven leading economies warned Saturday that the war in Ukraine is stoking a global food and energy crisis that threatens poor countries, and urgent measures are needed to unblock stores of grain that Russia is preventing from leaving Ukraine.German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who hosted a meeting of top G-7 diplomats, said the war had become a “global crisis.”Baerbock said up to 50 million people, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, would face hunger in the coming months unless ways are found to release Ukrainian grain, which accounts for a sizeable share of the worldwide supply.In a statement released at the end of a three-day meeting on Germany's Baltic Sea coast, the G-7 nations also called on China not to help Russia, including by undermining international sanctions or justifying Moscow's actions in Ukraine.“Russia’s war of aggression has generated one of the most severe food and energy crises in recent history which now threatens those most vulnerable across the globe,” the group said.“We are determined to accelerate a coordinated multilateral response to preserve global food security and stand by our most vulnerable partners in this respect,” it added.CLUJ-NAPOCA, Romania — Expectant mother Galina Kubiak says she misses her home in Ukraine but has fallen in love with Romania, the neighboring country where she fled with her two small children to escape the war.“Sometimes we go to the store, and they find out we’re Ukrainians and people give the kids milk or cookies, or sometimes they just give hugs,” the 35-year-old who now lives in Romania’s northern city of Cluj-Napoca said Friday.