Pelosi Visits Kyiv

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — The United Nations labored Sunday to get civilians out of the bombed-out ruins of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, while U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed she visited Ukraine’s president to show American support for the country’s defense against Russian aggression. Russia’s high-stakes offensive in coastal southern Ukraine and the country’s eastern industrial heartland has Ukrainian forces fighting village by village and more civilians fleeing airstrikes and artillery shelling as the war draws near their doorsteps. As many as 100,000 people are believed to still be in blockaded Maripol, including up to 1,000 civilians who were hunkered down with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath a sprawling Soviet-era steel plant that is the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians. Pelosi, who is second in line to succeed the president, is the most senior American lawmaker to visit Ukraine since the war erupted. Her Saturday trip with a congressional delegation was a sign of unflinching U.S. support and came just days after Russia launched rockets at the capital during a visit by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.