John Kerry urges Putin to help fight CLIMATE CHANGE as Russia prepared to invade Ukraine
have torn into 'despicable' former Secretary of State John Kerry for saying he hopes will still help fight climate change just before Russian fighter jets, troops and tanks rolled into in an all-out invasion. President Biden's climate envoy said frozen Russian land is 'thawing', Putin's 'infrastructure' is 'at risk' and urged the Russian tyrant to 'help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate. 'I'm concerned about Ukraine because of the people of Ukraine and because of the principles that are at risk, in terms of international law and trying to change boundaries of international law by force,' Kerry, President Biden's special envoy for climate said in an interview with Arabic. The clip surfaced just hours after Russian forces moved into Ukraine from the north, south and east and unleashed devastation on Ukraine. The interview was filmed on Monday, just before the all-out assault. On Thursday afternoon, Russian forces fought for control of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, 60 miles north of the capital Kiev, amid fears the battle could damage storage facilities holding nuclear waste sparking a fallout that could blanket Europe. 'I thought we lived in a world that had said no to that kind of activity. And I hope diplomacy will win,' Kerry added. Kerry was asked how 'concerned' he was about the conflict's effect on climate change. 'I am very concerned about Ukraine because of the people of Ukraine and the principles that are at risk in terms of international law and trying to change boundaries of international law by force. I thought we lived in a world that said no to that kind of activity, and I hope diplomacy will win. 'But it could have a profound negative impact on the climate obviously. You have a war and obviously you're going to have maximum emissions consequences to the but equally importantly, you're going to lose people's focus, you're going to lose certainly big country attention because they will be diverted and I think it could have a damaging impact, he continued. 'So, you know, I think hopefully President Putin would realize that in the northern part of his country, they used to live on 66 percent of the nation that was over frozen land'. 'Now it's thawing, and his infrastructure is at risk,' he added. 'And the people of Russia are at risk. And so I hope President Putin will help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.' Members of the GOP were quick to jump on the timing of Kerry's comments. Republican Senator Ted Cruz said: 'As war breaks out in Europe & casualties mount, a terrifying look into the ALWAYS politicized priorities of the Biden-Harris administration.' Republican Rep. August Pfluger of Texas said: 'Putin is killing innocent Ukrainians and John Kerry is asking him to stay 'on track' for the climate? Despicable. 'Russian energy is some of the worst for the environment. The Biden Admin climate religion has made our world less safe.' Kerry asserted that the focus on climate change was still important during the vicious standoff between Ukraine and Russia earlier this week. Egypt will host the COP27 climate conference in November and Kerry said the task for this year was to bring more countries on board to set ambitious climate goals as well as implementing pledges made at COP26 in Glasgow. 'We meet this morning in Egypt well aware of other tensions in the world, understanding that there are lives and principles at stake in what is happening with respect to Ukraine today,' Kerry told reporters after meeting Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry. 'But that does not change the reality of what is happening every day with respect to our climate. That is a national, international security threat to all of us.' Egypt and the United States have created a working group to set priorities for COP27 and to support Egypt's energy transition, Shoukry and Kerry said. Elsewhere Kiev ordered civilians to go to bomb shelters and declared a curfew amid fears Russia is about to strike the Ukrainian capital as Kiev's troops lost control of a key airfield around 15 miles away. Russian forces had attacked it with around two dozen attack helicopters earlier in the day, four of which are thought to have been shot down. 'They are going to bomb Kyiv now. Authorities told us to hide in shelters,' a source in the city told MailOnline as authorities said a hospital had been hit, killing four people. The Ukrainian army was this afternoon fighting in almost every region of the country, battling the Russians for control of military bases, airports, cities and ports from Kharkiv to Kiev, and Donetsk to Odessa. It came after Vladimir Putin personally gave the order to attack around 5am, unleashing a salvo of rocket fire that American intelligence said involved more than 100 short and medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles, and 75 bombers that targeted military sites including barracks, warehouses and airfields in order to knock out the country's military command structure.