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Ukraine accused Moscow on Thursday of forcibly taking hundreds of thousands of civilians from shattered Ukrainian cities to Russia, where some may be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to give up, Associated Press reported.

Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson, said 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, had been taken to Russia.

The Kremlin gave nearly identical numbers for those who have been relocated, but said they wanted to go to Russia. Ukraine’s rebel-controlled eastern regions are predominantly Russian-speaking, and many people there have supported close ties to Moscow.

A month into the invasion, the two sides traded heavy blows in what has become a devastating war of attrition. Ukraine’s navy said it sank a large Russian landing ship near the port city of Berdyansk that had been used to bring in armored vehicles. Russia claimed to have taken the eastern town of Izyum after fierce fighting, according to the Associated Press.

At an emergency NATO summit in Brussels, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with the Western allies via video for planes, tanks, rockets, air defense systems and other weapons, saying his country is “defending our common values.”

US President Joe Biden, in Europe for the summit and other high-level meetings, gave assurances more aid is on its way, though it appeared unlikely the West would give Zelenskyy everything he wanted, for fear of triggering a much wider war.

Around the capital, Kyiv, and other areas, Ukrainian defenders have fought Moscow’s ground troops to a near-stalemate, raising fears that a frustrated Russian President Vladimir Putin will resort to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, Associated Press reported.

In other developments Thursday:

—Ukraine and Russia exchanged a total of 50 military and civilian prisoners, the largest swap reported yet, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

—The pro-Moscow leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, warned that Poland’s proposal to deploy a Western peacekeeping force in Ukraine “will mean World War III.”

In Chernihiv, where an airstrike this week destroyed a crucial bridge, a city official, Olexander Lomako, said a “humanitarian catastrophe” is unfolding as Russian forces target food storage places. He said about 130,000 people are left in the besieged city, about half its prewar population.

—Russia said it will offer safe passage starting Friday to 67 ships from 15 foreign countries that are stranded in Ukrainian ports because of the danger of shelling and mines.

Kyiv and Moscow gave conflicting accounts, meanwhile, about the people being relocated to Russia and whether they were going willingly — as Russia claimed — or were being coerced or lied to.

Russian Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev said the roughly 400,000 people evacuated to Russia since the start of the military action were from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have been fighting for control for nearly eight years.

Russian authorities said they are providing accommodations and dispensing payments to the evacuees.

But Donetsk Region Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said that “people are being forcibly moved into the territory of the aggressor state.” Denisova said those removed by Russian troops included a 92-year-old woman in Mariupol who was forced to go to Taganrog in southern Russia, according to the Associated Press.

Ukrainian officials said that the Russians are taking people’s passports and moving them to “filtration camps” in Ukraine’s separatist-controlled east before sending them to various distant, economically depressed areas in Russia. 

Among those taken, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry charged, were 6,000 residents of Mariupol, the devastated port city in the country’s east. Moscow’s troops are confiscating identity documents from an additional 15,000 people in a section of Mariupol under Russian control, the ministry said.

Some could be sent as far as the Pacific island of Sakhalin, Ukrainian intelligence said, and are being offered jobs on condition they don’t leave for two years. The ministry said the Russians intend to “use them as hostages and put more political pressure on Ukraine.”

Kyrylenko said that Mariupol’s residents have been long deprived of information and that the Russians feed them false claims about Ukraine’s defeats to persuade them to move to Russia, Associated Press reported.

“Russian lies may influence those who have been under the siege,” he said.

As for the naval attack in Berdyansk, Ukraine claimed two more ships were damaged and a 3,000-ton fuel tank was destroyed when the Russian ship Orsk was sunk, causing a fire that spread to ammunition supplies.

Zelenskyy rallied the country to keep up its military defense in hopes it would lead to peace.

“With every day of our defense, we are getting closer to the peace that we need so much. We are getting closer to victory. … We can’t stop even for a minute, for every minute determines our fate, our future, whether we will live,” he said late Thursday in his nightly video address to the nation.

Zelenskyy said thousands of people, including 128 children, have died in the first month of the war. Across the country, 230 schools and 155 kindergartens have been destroyed. Cities and villages “lie in ashes,” he said, according To The Associated Press.

President Joe Biden and Western allies pledged new sanctions and humanitarian aid on Thursday in response to Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine, but their offers fell short of the more robust military assistance that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded for in a pair of live-video appearances, Associated Press.

Biden also announced the US would welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees — though he said many probably prefer to stay closer to home — and provide an additional $1 billion in food, medicine, water and other supplies.

The Western leaders spent Thursday crafting next steps to counter Russia’s month-old invasion — and huddling over how they might respond should Putin deploy chemical, biological or even a nuclear weapon. They met in a trio of emergency summits that had them shuttling across Brussels for back-to-back-to-back meetings of NATO, the Group of Seven industrialized nations and the 27-member European Council.

Biden, in an early evening news conference after the meetings, warned that a chemical attack by Russia “would trigger a response in kind.” 

“You’re asking whether NATO would cross. We’d make that decision at the time,” Biden said, according to the Associated Press.

However, a White House official said later that did not imply any shift in the US positionagainst direct military action in Ukraine. Biden and NATO allies have stressed that the US and NATO would not put troops on the ground in Ukraine. 

The official was not authorized to comment publicly by name and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Zelenskyy, while thankful for the newly promised help, made clear to the Western allies he needed far more than they’re currently willing to give.

“One percent of all your planes, one percent of all your tanks,” Zelenskyy asked members of the NATO alliance. “We can’t just buy those. When we will have all this, it will give us, just like you, 100% security.”

Biden said more aid was on its way. But the Western leaders were treading carefully so as not to further escalate the conflict beyond the borders of Ukraine, Associated Press.

“NATO has made a choice to support Ukraine in this war without going to war with Russia,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. “Therefore we have decided to intensify our ongoing work to prevent any escalation and to get organized in case there is an escalation.”

Poland and other eastern flank NATO countries are seeking clarity on how the US and European nations can assist in dealing with their growing concerns about Russian aggression as well as the refugee crisis. More than 3.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine in recent weeks, including more than 2 million to Poland.

Biden is to visit Rzeszów, Poland, on Friday, where energy and refugee issues are expected to be at the center of talks with President Andrzej Duda. He’ll get a briefing on humanitarian aid efforts to assist fleeing refugees and he’ll meet with US troops from the 82nd Airborne Division who have been deployed in recent weeks to bolster NATO’s eastern flank.

Billions of dollars of military hardware have already been provided to Ukraine. A US official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Western nations were discussing the possibility of providing anti-ship weapons amid concerns that Russia will launch amphibious assaults along the Black Sea coast.

Biden said his top priority at Thursday’s meetings was to make certain that the West stayed on the same page in its response to Russian aggression against Ukraine, according to the Associated Press.

“The single most important thing is for us to stay unified,” he said.

Finland announced Thursday it would send more military equipment to Ukraine, its second shipment in about three weeks. And Belgium announced it will add one billion euros to its defense budget in response to Russia’s invasion..

At the same time, Washington will expand its sanctions on Russia, targeting members of the country’s parliament along with defense contractors. The US said it will also work with other Western nations to ensure gold reserves held by Russia’s central bank are subject to existing sanctions. 

With Russia facing increasing international isolation, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also warned China against coming to Moscow’s rescue. He called on Beijing “to join the rest of the world and clearly condemn the brutal war against Ukraine and not support Russia.”

But Stoltenberg, too, made clear that the West had a “responsibility to prevent this conflict from becoming a full-fledged war in Europe.”

The possibility that Russia will use chemical or even nuclear weapons has been a grim topic of conversation in Brussels.

Stoltenberg said that NATO leaders agreed Thursday to send equipment to Ukraine to help protect it against a chemical weapons attack.

White House officials said that both the US and NATO have been working on contingency planning should Russia deploy nonconventional weaponry. NATO has specially trained and equipped forces if there should be such an attack against a member nation’s population, territory or forces. Ukraine is not a member, Associated Press.

Stoltenberg said in an NBC News interview that if Russia deployed chemical weapons, that would make “an unpredictable, dangerous situation even more dangerous and even more unpredictable.” He declined to comment about how the alliance might respond.

The White House National Security Council launched efforts days after the invasion through its “Tiger Team,” which is tasked with planning three months out, and a second strategy group working on a longer term review of any geopolitical shift that may come, according to a senior administration official. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Both teams are conducting contingency planning for scenarios including Russia’s potential use of chemical or biological weapons, targeting of US security convoys in the region, disruptions to global food supply chains and the growing refugee crisis.

Biden before departing for Europe on Wednesday said that the possibility of a chemical attack was a “real threat.” In addition, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN this week that Russia could consider using its nuclear weapons if it felt there were “an existential threat for our country.” 

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin on Thursday warned, “Russia is capable of anything.” 

“They don’t respect any rules,” Marin told reporters. “They don’t respect any international laws that they are actually committed to.”

The Russian invasion has spurred European nations to reconsider their military spending, and Stoltenberg opened the NATO summit by saying the alliance must “respond to a new security reality in Europe.”

The bolstering of forces along NATO’s eastern flank will put pressure on national budgets, Associated Press.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is all set to visit India in the first week of April. 

The Prime Minister is visiting India at the invitation of his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi from April 1 to 3.

The Foreign Ministry is making preparations for the Prime Minister’s visit to India. 

According to a source, an official decision on the PM’s visit to India is likely to be taken by today evening. 

During the visit, PM Deuba and his Indian counterpart Modi will jointly inaugurate the Nepal-India railway services.

Prior to PM Deuba’s visit to India, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will arrive in Nepal for a three-day visit. 

Minister Wang is arriving in Nepal at the invitation of his Nepali counterpart Narayan Khadka.

China’s foreign minister made a surprise stop in Kabul on Thursday to meet Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, even as the international community fumes over the hard-line movement’s broken promise a day earlier to open schools to girls beyond the sixth grade, Associated Press reported.

The official Bakhtar News Agency announced Wang Yi will meet with Taliban leaders “to discuss various issues including the extension of political relations, economic, and transit cooperation.” 

The Taliban, who swept to power last August with the chaotic end to 20 years of war by a US and NATO coalition, have been seeking international recognition in order to open up their economy, which has been in free fall since their arrival.

China has not shown any inclination to recognize the Taliban government but it has avoided criticizing the new rulers, despite their repressive rules directed particularly at women, denying them unhindered access to work and school.

China has, however, kept its Embassy in Kabul open and offered limited emergency assistance, according to the Associated Press.

The US-led coalition unseated the Taliban in 2001 after they refused to hand over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America. They returned to power and installed an all male Taliban-only interim government. The international community has been urging them to open up the government to ethnic minorities, non -Taliban and women.

Wang is one of the highest level visitors to Afghanistan since the Taliban’s return. China, while refusing to offer recognition, has been engaging with the Taliban since their takeover. China has economic and mining interests in Afghanistan and Afghans familiar with past talks between the Taliban and Chinese officials say Beijing wants Taliban commitments to prevent China’s Uighur opponents from setting up operations in Afghanistan.

Last July, however, Wang hosted a delegation from the group led by top Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in the Chinese city of Tianjin, shortly before the group seized power from Afghanistan’s elected government. 

At that meeting, Wang sought assurances the Taliban would not allow anti-China groups to operate under their rule and referred to the group as “a pivotal military and political force in Afghanistan.” He said they are “expected to play an important role in the process of peace, reconciliation and reconstruction.”

There have been reports that militants from among the Turkic Muslim Uyghur minority native to China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang have found shelter in Afghanistan. China has carried out a campaign of repression against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, including locking a million or more away in political re-education camps, Associated Press reported.

The overseas East Turkistan Islamic Movement has for years fought a low-level insurgency against Chinese rule.

It has been aligned with the Islamic State affiliate known as Islamic State in Khorazan Province, an enemy of the Taliban, but its current operational status is not know. 

Despite consistent and documented reports of Beijing’s crackdown the Uighurs, Wang was welcomed as a special guest this week at a summit in neighboring Pakistan of foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. 

There Wang called for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. None of the OIC participants or host Pakistan, who has been particularly vocal about growing Islamophobia, mentioned China’s crackdown on its minority Muslims. That has included the destruction of mosques and punishment for those Uighurs who participate in religious edicts.

China also has interest in stability in Afghanistan, as it has been used as a base for insurgent attacks against its nationals in neighboring Pakistan. It also has a multi-billion dollar road project in Pakistan linking the Arabian Sea Port of Gwadar with China in the northwest, Associated Press reported.