LIVE UPDATES: US Cannot Confirm Use of Chemical Agents in Mariupol, Senior Defense Official Says

Residents of Mariupol said they know nothing about the alleged attack on the city with the use of chemical weapons.

On Monday, Ukrainian battalion Azov, with commonly recognized neo-Nazi ideology, accused the Russian forces of having used a poisonous chemical substance against its fighters in Mariupol, which allegedly resulted in the militants and even some civilians feeling sick.

“I myself am from the Levoberezhny District, but this is the first time I hear about this information. I haven’t seen or heard anything like that," a resident of Mariupol, who was evacuated from the city, told Sputnik.

Another resident of Mariupol, who is staying in the city, said: “At the moment, I can only say one thing. We have been here since [April] 10. Today I talked with my mother, who is currently in the Kalius region, and she said that everything is fine, she feels fine, no such incidents and there were no gases, there was nothing like that."

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Tuesday the United States cannot confirm the allegations that a chemical weapon was used in Mariupol.

The US intelligence community was able to monitor the movement of Russian military forces before and during the Ukraine conflict in real time but sought not to present its findings in ways that shaped policy or inadvertently exposed or compromised its sources, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines said.

"One concern I had was that we [would] not be perceived as a tool of policy," Haines told a forum at the Meridian International Center in Washington, DC on Tuesday. “We are cautious ... It is a long term thing to see whether or not you actually burn your sources and methods through disclosures."

Haines emphasized that the 18 major US intelligence services continually analyzed their own conclusions and public statements to try and ensure that means of intelligence collection and key sources were not accidentally revealed and endangered.

"We have learned a lot of lessons through the process," she said.

The Biden administration will announce an additional $750 million in security assistance for Ukraine as soon as Wednesday, Reuters reported citing two sources familiar with the matter.

The Biden administration is currently determining what mix of military equipment to send to Ukraine, the report said on Tuesday.

"They present it as a gesture of protest against the Russian special military operation. At the same time, we must understand that in fact such a gesture by the authorities is due to the fact that a powerful Ukrainian diaspora lives in the province, which, in fact, is pushing the authorities to make decisions that have nothing to do with the crisis in Ukraine," Stepanov said.

Psaki added that the United States does not have anyone on the ground in Ukraine to participate in an investigation into the allegations.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday confirmed that he was ready to visit Kiev alongside his colleagues from Poland and the Baltic states but the Ukrainian side has said that his visit was undesirable.

"Polish President Andrzej Duda, few days ago, suggested that we, together with the presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, make a trip to Kiev to send a strong signal of common European solidarity with Ukraine there. I was ready for this, but ... I must take note that in Kiev it was undesirable," Steinmeier told reporters in Warsaw.

Earlier in the day, Bild reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has refused to host Steinmeier in Kiev due to his "close connections" to Russia in recent years.

"We cannot confirm the reports that were out on social media yesterday that chemical agents were used in Mariupol ... We cannot confirm the use of chemical agents at this time. We're still evaluating," the official told a briefing.

"I am not aware of these changes. But such inconsistency on fundamental issues creates certain difficulties in reaching final agreements acceptable to everyone on the negotiating track. And until this happens, the military operation will continue until it is fully completed and the tasks that were set at the beginning of this operation are solved," Putin said.

According to information from US diplomatic sources, the creation of a full-fledged US base in the Czech Republic is not on the agenda, the newspaper reported.

"After that we can consider speaking about this equipment in regard with Ukraine as well," Heger added.