Russian President Vladimir Putin has put Russian nuclear deterrent forces on alert, as he continues his unprovoked assault and invasion of Ukraine, Axios reports.

President Joe Biden said his goal “from the very beginning” was to keep America’s allies on the same page, as Russian leader Vladimir Putin believed he could “split NATO” and proceed with his invasion of Ukraine without encountering much in the way of international resolve or resistance, Politico reports.

Instead, Putin is “producing the exact opposite effect that he intended.”

“Ukraine’s defenders held on to the country’s capital, Kyiv, on the fourth day of Russia’s invasion and engaged in urban combat in its second-largest city, Kharkiv, as Western governments stepped up their sanctions against Moscow,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Russia signaled its openness to talks with Kyiv, saying that it sent Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to President Vladimir Putin, to the Belarusian city of Homel for negotiations with Ukraine.”

“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded by saying that he is ready for talks in any country other than Belarus, one of the launchpads for the Russian invasion.”

Said Zelensky: “Of course we want peace, we want talks, we want the end of the war. We accept any city in any country from which rockets are not being fired at us.”

“Germany will boost military spending above 2% of GDP and create a strategic natural-gas reserve, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday, marking a significant shift in the country’s defense and energy policies in reaction to Russia’s war in Ukraine,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The measures, all of which had long been resisted by successive governments and will now be reflected in this year’s budget, underline how profoundly Russia’s attack on Ukraine is upending European politics after almost eight decades of nearly uninterrupted peace on the continent.”

“Donald Trump condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and said he was praying for Ukrainians, switching tone from his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week,” Reuters reports.

Said Trump: “The problem is not that Putin is smart, which, of course, he’s smart. The problem is that our leaders are dumb… and so far, allowed him to get away with this travesty and assault on humanity.”

CNN notes he even called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “a brave man” amid Russia’s deadly invasion of his country.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in new remarks on Saturday that he had spoken with the leaders of Britain, Poland, Turkey and several other nations as he sought to rally an “antiwar coalition” against Russia, the New York Times reports.

Franklin Foer: “When Zelensky rejected Washington’s offer of exile, he wasn’t making an obvious decision. After Germany invaded France, Charles de Gaulle made his way to London. Or to take a more recent example: Afghan president Ashraf Ghani boarded a helicopter out of Kabul the moment he heard a rumor that the Taliban had entered the city. And, really, who could blame them? Most human beings would rather not have their enemies hang their corpse from a traffic light, the sort of historic antecedent that is hard to shake from the mind.”

“In Ukraine, the decision for a leader to flee would be the expected choice. It’s what his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, did in the aftermath of the revolution in 2014, leaving behind his palace filled with exotic cars and ostriches for the safety of Moscow. The enduring failure of Ukrainian democracy has been the gap between the code of behavior that applies to the elite and the one that the rest of the country must follow. It’s been the elites who profit off the state, who stash their ill-gotten fortunes in French villas and Cypriot bank accounts, while their compatriots have stagnated. By staying put, Zelensky has erased this gap. There’s no airlift awaiting his fellow residents, so rather than accepting the perk of his position, he’s suffering in the same terror and deprivation that they are forced to endure.”

“Outmanned Ukrainian forces are holding on to their capital after resisting an overnight onslaught that included explosions and bursts of gunfire,” the Washington Post reports.

“As fighting receded during daylight hours, Kyiv was still in Ukrainian government hands.”

Wall Street Journal: “On the third day of the war that Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed with the aim of overthrowing Ukraine’s elected government and ending its alignment with the West, Ukrainian forces fought fiercely on all fronts, with each side asserting it had inflicted heavy losses on the other.”