Putin
Putin appears at big rally as troops press attack in Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared at a huge flag-waving rally at a Moscow stadium and praised his country’s troops Friday as they pressed their lethal attacks on Ukrainian cities with shelling and missiles.
“Shoulder to shoulder, they help and support each other,” Putin said in a rare public appearance since the invasion three weeks ago that made Russia an outcast among nations. “We have not had unity like this for a long time,” he added to cheers from the crowd.
Moscow police said more than 200,000 people were in and around the Luzhniki stadium for the celebration marking the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula, seized from Ukraine.
The event included well-known singer Oleg Gazmanov singing “Made in the U.S.S.R.,” with the opening lines “Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, it’s all my country.”
Seeking to portray the war as a just one and commend Russia’s troops, Putin paraphrased the Bible to say, “There is no greater love than giving up one’s soul for one’s friends.” And he continued to insist his actions were necessary to prevent “genocide,” a claim flatly denied by leaders around the globe.
Standing on stage in a white turtleneck and a blue down jacket, Putin spoke for about five minutes. Some people, including presenters at the event, wore T-shirts or jackets with a “Z” — a symbol seen on Russian tanks and military vehicles in Ukraine and embraced by supporters of the war.
Read: Russian strikes hit Ukrainian capital and outskirts of Lviv
His quoting of the Bible and a Russian admiral of the 18th century reflected his increasing focus in recent years on history and religion as binding forces in Russia’s post-Soviet society.
Meanwhile, Russian troops continued to pound the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and launched a barrage of missiles on the outskirts of the western city of Lviv.
The early morning attack on Lviv’s edge was the closest strike yet to the center of the city, which has become a crossroads for people fleeing from other parts of Ukraine and for others entering to deliver aid or fight.
In city after city around Ukraine, hospitals, schools and buildings where people sought safety have been attacked. Rescue workers searched for survivors in the ruins of a theater that served as a shelter when it was blasted by a Russian airstrike Wednesday in the besieged southern city of Mariupol.
Ludmyla Denisova, Ukrainain parliament’s human rights commissioner, said at least 130 people had survived the theater bombing.
“But according to our data, there are still more than 1,300 people in these basements, in this bomb shelter,” Denisova told Ukrainian television. “We pray that they will all be alive, but so far there is no information about them.”
At Lviv, black smoke billowed for hours after the explosions, which hit a facility for repairing military aircraft near the city’s international airport, 6 kilometers (4 miles) from the center. One person was wounded, the regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyy, said.
Multiple blasts hit in quick succession around 6 a.m., shaking nearby buildings, witnesses said. The missiles were launched from the Black Sea, but the Ukrainian air force’s western command said it had shot down two of six missile in the volley. A bus repair facility was also damaged, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.
Putin says Ukraine's future in doubt as cease-fires collapse
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Saturday that Ukrainian statehood is in jeopardy and likened the West's sanctions on Russia to “declaring war,” while a promised cease-fire in the besieged port city of Mariupol collapsed amid scenes of terror.
With the Kremlin’s rhetoric growing fiercer and a reprieve from fighting dissolving, Russian troops continued to shell encircled cities and the number of Ukrainians forced from their country grew to 1.4 million. By Saturday night Russian forces had intensified their shelling of Mariupol, while dropping powerful bombs on residential areas of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.
Bereft mothers mourned slain children, wounded soldiers were fitted with tourniquets and doctors worked by the light of their cellphones as bleakness and desperation pervaded. Putin continued to pin the blame for all of it squarely on the Ukrainian leadership and slammed their resistance to the invasion.
“If they continue to do what they are doing, they are calling into question the future of Ukrainian statehood,” he said. “And if this happens, it will be entirely on their conscience.”
He also hit out at Western sanctions that have crippled Russia's economy and sent the value of its currency tumbling.
READ: Putin warns against Ukraine no-fly zone
“These sanctions that are being imposed, they are akin to declaring war,” he said during a televised meeting with flight attendants from Russian airline Aeroflot. “But thank God, we haven’t got there yet.”
Russia's financial system suffered yet another blow as Mastercard and Visa announced they were suspending operations in the country.
Ten days after Russian forces invaded, the struggle to enforce the temporary cease-fires in Mariupol and the eastern city of Volnovakha showed the fragility of efforts to stop the fighting across Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said Russian artillery fire and airstrikes had prevented residents from leaving before the agreed-to evacuations got underway. Putin accused Ukraine of sabotaging the effort.
A third round of talks between Russia and Ukraine will take place Monday, according to Davyd Arakhamia, a member of the Ukrainian delegation. He gave no additional details, including where they would take place.
Previous meetings were held in Belarus and led to the failed cease-fire agreement to create humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of children, women and older people from besieged cities, where pharmacies have run bare, hundreds of thousands face food and water shortages, and the injured have been succumbing to their wounds.
In comments carried on Ukrainian television, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said thousands of residents had gathered for safe passage out of the city of 430,000 when shelling began and the evacuation was stopped. Later in the day, he said the attack had escalated further.
“The city is in a very, very difficult state of siege,” Boychenko told Ukrainian TV. “Relentless shelling of residential blocks is ongoing, airplanes have been dropping bombs on residential areas. The Russian occupants are using heavy artillery, including Grad multiple rocket launchers.”
Russia has made significant advances in the south, seeking to cut off Ukraine’s access to the sea. Capturing Mariupol could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Meanwhile the head of the Chernihiv region said Russia has dropped powerful bombs on residential areas of the city of the same name, which has a population of 290,000. Vyacheslav Chaus posted a photo online of what he said was an undetonated FAB-500, a 1,100-pound (500-kilogram) bomb.
“Usually this weapon is used against military-industrial facilities and fortified structures,” Chaus said. “But in Chernihiv, against residential areas.”
In a speech to Ukrainians on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed to "the 500-kilogram bombs that were dropped on the houses of Ukrainians. Look at Borodyanka, at the destroyed schools, at the blown-up kindergartens. At the damaged Kharkiv Assumption Cathedral. Look what Russia has done.”
The West has broadly backed Ukraine, offering aid and weapons and slapping Russia with vast sanctions. But the fight itself has been left to Ukrainians, who have expressed a mixture of courageous resolve and despondency.
READ: Ukraine wants special tribunal to judge Putin
“Ukraine is bleeding,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a video released Saturday, “but Ukraine has not fallen.”
Russian troops advanced on a third nuclear power plant, having already taken control of one of the four operating in the country and the closed plant in Chernobyl, Zelenskyy told U.S. lawmakers.
Zelenskyy pleaded with the lawmakers for additional help, specifically fighter planes to help secure the skies over Ukraine, even as he insisted Russia was being defeated.
“We’re inflicting losses on the occupants they could not see in their worst nightmare,” Zelenskyy said.
Russian troops took control of the southern port city of Kherson this week. Although they have encircled Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Sumy, Ukrainian forces have managed to keep control of key cities in central and southeastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy said.
U.S. President Joe Biden called Zelenskyy early Sunday, Kyiv time, to discuss Russia sanctions and speeding U.S. assistance to Ukraine. The White House said the conversation also covered talks between Russia and Ukraine but did not give details.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Poland to meet with the prime minister and foreign minister, a day after attending a NATO meeting in Brussels in which the alliance pledged to step up support for eastern flank members.
Blinken also spoke by phone with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who said Beijing opposes any moves that “add fuel to the flames” in Ukraine, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Blinken said the world is watching to see which nations stand up for freedom and sovereignty, the State Department said.
In Moscow, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Putin at the Kremlin. Israel maintains good relations with both Russia and Ukraine, and Bennett has offered to act as an intermediary in the conflict, but no details of the meeting emerged immediately. Bennett's office said he spoke twice with Zelenskyy afterward, however.
In the wake of Western sanctions, Aeroflot, Russia’s flagship state-owned airline, announced that it plans to halt all international flights except to Belarus, starting Tuesday.
The death toll of the conflict was difficult to measure. The U.N. human rights office said at least 351 civilians have been confirmed killed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, but the true number is probably much higher. The Russian military, which doesn't offer regular updates on casualties, said Wednesday that 498 of its troops had been killed.
Ukraine's military is vastly outmatched by Russia's, but its professional and volunteer forces have fought back with fierce tenacity. Even in cities that have fallen, there were signs of resistance.
Onlookers in Chernihiv cheered as they watched a Russian military plane fall from the sky and crash, according to video released by the Ukrainian government. In Kherson, hundreds of protesters waved blue and yellow Ukrainian flag sand shouted, “Go home.”
A vast Russian armored column threatening Ukraine’s capital remained stalled outside Kyiv. Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich said Saturday afternoon that the military situation was quieter overall and that Russian forces hadn't “taken active actions since the morning.”
Zelenskyy has pleaded for a no-fly zone over his country and lashed out at NATO for refusing to impose one, warning that “all the people who die from this day forward will also die because of you.”
Putin warned that a no-fly zone would be considered a hostile act, and NATO has said it has no plans to implement one. Western officials have said a main reason is a desire to not widen the war beyond Ukraine.
The U.S. Congress is considering a request for $10 billion in emergency funding for humanitarian aid and security needs. The U.N. said it would increase its humanitarian operations both inside and outside Ukraine, and the Security Council scheduled a meeting for Monday on the worsening situation.
The U.N. World Food Program has warned of an impending hunger crisis in Ukraine, a major global wheat supplier, saying millions will need food aid “immediately.”
Kyiv’s central train station remained crowded with people desperate to flee. “People just want to live,” one woman, Ksenia, said.
US hits Putin allies, press secretary with new sanctions
The Biden administration ordered new sanctions blocking Russian business oligarchs and others in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle on Thursday in response to Russian forces' fierce pummeling of Ukraine.
President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke late Thursday as Russian forces shelled Europe’s largest nuclear plant, in the eastern Ukraine city of Enerhodar. The assault sparked a fire and raised fears that radiation could leak from the damaged power station.
The White House said Biden joined Zelenskyy in urging Russia to “cease its military activities in the area and allow firefighters and emergency responders to access the site.”
Those targeted by the new U.S. sanctions include Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, and Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov, one of Russia’s wealthiest individuals and a close ally of Putin. The U.S. State Department also announced it was imposing visa bans on 19 Russian oligarchs and dozens of their family members and close associates.
"The goal was to maximize impact on Putin and Russia and minimize the harm on us and our allies and friends around the world,” Biden said as he noted the new sanctions at the start of a meeting with his Cabinet and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Also read: Russia takes aim at urban areas; Biden vows Putin will 'pay'
The White House said the oligarchs and dozens of their family members will be cut off from the U.S. financial system. Their assets in the United States will be frozen and their property will be blocked from use.
The White House described Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, as ”a top purveyor of Putin’s propaganda.”
The property of Usmanov and the others will be blocked from use in the United States and by Americans. His assets include his superyacht, one of the world’s largest, and his private jet, one of Russia’s largest privately owned aircraft.
The Usmanov superyacht, known as Dilbar, is named after Usmanov’s mother and has an estimated worth of between $600 million and $735 million, according to Treasury. Dilbar has two helipads and one of the world’s largest indoor pools ever installed on a yacht, and costs about $60 million per year to operate. The jet targeted is believed to have cost between $350 million and $500 million and was previously leased out for use by Uzbekistan’s president.
Others targeted Thursday include Nikolai Tokarev, a Transneft oil executive; Arkady Rotenberg, co-owner of the largest construction company for gas pipelines and electrical power supply lines in Russia; Sergei Chemezov, a former KGB agent who has long been close to Putin; Igor Shuvalov, a former first deputy prime minister and chairman of State Development Corp.; and Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Russian businessman with close ties to Putin.
Also read: Biden joins allies, bans Russian planes from US airspace
Prigozhin, who is known as “Putin's chef,” was among those charged in 2018 by the U.S. government as being part of a wide-ranging effort to sway political opinion in America during the 2016 presidential election.
According to the indictment then, Prigozhin and his companies provided significant funding to the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based group accused of using bogus social media postings and advertisements fraudulently purchased in the name of Americans to influence the White House race.
Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said Thursday that the Biden administration would continue to target Russian elites as it builds sanctions against the country. He said elites are already "attempting to get their money out of Russia, because the Russian economy is shrinking.”
“We’re going to make it hard for them to use the assets going forward," Adeyemo said at an event hosted by The Washington Post. He added, “Our goal then is to find that money and to freeze that money and to seize it.”
The Biden administration has been unveiling new sanctions targeting Russian individuals and entities daily since the start of last week's invasion, with officials saying they want to make certain Putin's decision to attack Ukraine will come with enormous cost to Russia's economy.
A notable aspect of the latest sanctions is the extent to which the U.S. penalized the family members of oligarchs and those closest to Putin. Recently passed anti-money-laundering legislation passed by Congress has helped Treasury unveil and target such people.
For example, the oil executive Tokarev’s family members — including his wife, Galina Tokareva, and daughter, Maiya Tokareva — have benefited from his proximity to Putin and Russian government and were hit by the sanctions. Maiya Tokareva’s real estate empire has been valued at more than $50 million in Moscow, according to Treasury.
Russian elites that have yet to be targeted by the U.S. or other Western countries have taken notice of the sanctions.
Faced with the threat of financial sanctions targeting Russians, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich announced Wednesday he is trying to sell the Premier League soccer club that became a trophy-winning machine thanks to his lavish investment. Abramovich made his fortune in oil and aluminum during the chaotic years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Biden had thus far been reluctant to hit the Russia energy sector with sanctions out of concern that it would hurt the U.S. and its allies as well as the Russians.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “We don’t have a strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy.”
Macron talks to Putin, calls for ceasefire in Ukraine
French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said it was necessary to immediately cease fire in Ukraine where Russian armed forces are conducting a military operation, the Elysee Palace said on Monday.
Also read: Putin puts nuclear forces on high alert, escalating tensions
"In connection with the start of negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations, the President of the Republic asked that the following be observed on the ground: a cessation of all strikes and attacks on civilians and their places of residence, the preservation of all civilian infrastructure, ensuring security on highways, especially south of Kiev," the Elysee said in a statement. The statement asserts that Putin "assured he was willing to commit himself on these three counts."
The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier that Russian troops are not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure with precision strikes, and therefore there are no threats to the civilian population.
Also read: Ukraine talks yield no breakthrough as Russians close in
Ukraine slows Russian advance under shadow of nuclear threat
Outgunned but determined Ukrainian troops slowed Russia’s advance and held onto the capital and other key cities — at least for now. In the face of stiff resistance and devastating sanctions, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear forces put on high alert, threatening to elevate the war to a terrifying new level.
Explosions and gunfire that have disrupted life since the invasion began last week appeared to subside around Kyiv overnight, as Ukrainian and Russian delegations prepared to meet Monday on Ukraine’s border with Belarus. It's unclear what, if anything, those talks would yield.
Terrified Ukrainian families huddled in shelters, basements or corridors, waiting to find out. Exact death tolls are unclear, but Ukraine’s president says at least 16 children have been killed and another 45 wounded, among hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other casualties. Millions have fled homes or the country all together.
Russia's Central Bank scrambled to shore up the tanking ruble Monday and the U.S. and European countries upped weapons shipments to Ukraine. While they hope to curb Putin’s aggression after he unleashed Europe's biggest conflict since World War II, the measures also risked pushing an increasingly cornered Putin closer to the edge.
Also read: 16 children killed, 45 injured in Ukraine: President Zelenskyy
“I sit and pray for these negotiations to end successfully, so that they reach an agreement to end the slaughter, and so there is no more war," said Alexandra Mikhailova, weeping as she clutched her cat in a makeshift shelter in the strategic southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Around her, parents sought to console children and keep them warm.
The relative lull in warfare Monday morning in Ukraine was unlikely to last.
Neighboring Belarus could send troops to help Russia as soon as Monday, according to a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of current U.S. intelligence assessments. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
U.S. officials say they believe the invasion has been more difficult, and slower, than the Kremlin envisioned, though that could change as Moscow adapts. The British Defense Ministry said Monday that the bulk of Putin’s forces are about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Kyiv, their advance having been slowed by Ukrainian forces.
Also read: Ukraine says Kiev still under control
Western nations ramped up the pressure with a freeze on Russia’s hard currency reserves, threatening to bring Russia’s economy to its knees. Russians withdrew savings and sought to shed rubles for dollars and euros, while Russian businesses scrambled to protect their finances.
In addition to sanctions, the U.S. and Germany announced they will send Stinger missiles to Ukraine among other military supplies. The European Union — founded to ensure peace on the continent after World War II — is supplying lethal aid for the first time, including fighter jets.
EU defense ministers were to meet Monday to discuss how to get the pledged weaponry into Ukraine. Germany’s defense minister said without elaborating that her country has “channels and possibilities” to do that, and a trainload of Czech equipment arrived Sunday. Blocking off those shipments will clearly be a key Russian priority.
It remains to be seen how much the weaponry will help Ukraine fend off Russia’s vastly greater arsenal.
The increasingly erratic Putin made a clear link between ever-tightening sanctions and his decision Sunday to raise Russia’s nuclear posture. He also pointed at “aggressive statements” by NATO as a reason for his move, a reference to his long-running stance that the U.S.-led alliance is an existential threat to Russia.
U.S. and British officials played down Putin’s nuclear threat, and its practical meaning was not immediately clear. Russia and the United States typically have land- and submarine-based nuclear forces that are prepared for combat at all times, but nuclear-capable bombers and other aircraft are not.
A tiny sliver of hope emerged as a Ukrainian delegation arrived on the border with Belarus for talks with Russian officials Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said it would demand an immediate cease-fire.
While Ukraine sent its defense minister and other top officials, the Russian delegation is led by Putin's adviser on culture — an unlikely envoy for ending the war and a sign of how Moscow views the talks. It wasn’t immediately clear what Putin is seeking in the talks or from the war itself.
Western officials believe Putin wants to overthrow Ukraine’s government and replace it with a regime of his own, reviving Moscow’s Cold War-era influence. His comments Sunday raised fears that the invasion of Ukraine could lead to nuclear war, whether by design or mistake.
In New York, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly scheduled an emergency session Monday on Russia’s invasion.
With the Ukrainian capital besieged, the Russian military offered to allow residents to leave Kyiv via a safe corridor, raising fears a further onslaught is coming. The mayor of the city of nearly 3 million had earlier expressed doubt that civilians could be evacuated. Authorities have been handing out weapons to anyone willing to defend the city. Ukraine is also releasing prisoners with military experience who want to fight, and training people to make firebombs.
Battles also broke out in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, and strategic ports in the country's south came under assault from Russian forces. Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of Azov, is “hanging on,” said Zelenskyy adviser Oleksiy Arestovich.
The Russian military claimed Monday it had taken full control of Ukraine’s airspace after showering its air bases and air defense batteries with air and missile strikes. But a similar claim on the first day of the invasion turned out to be untrue, and U.S. officials said Sunday that Moscow has failed to fully control Ukrainian skies.
In Mariupol, where Ukrainians were trying to fend off attack, a medical team at a city hospital desperately tried to revive a 6-year-old girl in unicorn pajamas who was mortally wounded in Russian shelling.
During the rescue attempt, a doctor in blue medical scrubs, pumping oxygen into the girl, looked directly into the Associated Press video camera capturing the scene.
“Show this to Putin," he said angrily. “The eyes of this child, and crying doctors."
Their resuscitation efforts failed, and the girl lay dead on a gurney, covered by her blood-splattered jacket.
Nearly 900 kilometers (560 miles) away, Faina Bystritska was under threat in the city of Chernihiv.
“I wish I had never lived to see this,” said Bystritska, an 87-year-old Jewish survivor of World War II. She said sirens blare almost constantly in the city, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Kyiv.
Among Western sanctions is a freeze on Russia's hard currency reserves, which Putin had built up in recent years to increase the country's economic independence. The unprecedented move could have devastating consequences for the country's financial system.
The U.S., European Union and Britain also agreed to block selected Russian banks from the SWIFT system, which facilitates moving money around thousands of banks and other financial institutions worldwide.
Putin puts Russia's nuclear deterrent forces on alert
President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian nuclear deterrent forces put on high alert Sunday amid tensions with the West over his invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin asserted that leading NATO powers had made “aggressive statements” along with the West imposing hard-hitting financial sanctions against Russia, including the president himself.
The alert means Putin has ordered Russia's nuclear weapons prepared for increased readiness to launch. He told the Russian defense minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty.”
Also read: Sanctions vs. neutrality: Swiss fine-tune response to Russia
“Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country," Putin said in televised comments.
His order raised the threat that the tensions with the West over the invasion in Ukraine could lead to the use of nuclear weapons.
The Russian leader this week threatened to retaliate harshly against any nations that intervened directly in the conflict in Ukraine.
Also read: Russia hits Ukraine fuel supplies, airfields in new attacks
US, Europe step up Russia sanctions to target Putin directly
The United States and European allies said Friday they were stepping up sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by adding measures directly targeting President Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister, putting diplomatic appeals to one side as Russia’s forces closed on Ukraine’s capital.
The move by the U.S., the European Union and Britain sends “a clear message about the strength of the opposition to the actions” by Putin, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. On a day when explosions and gunfire were sounding in Kyiv’s capital, and Pope Francis went to Russia’s embassy in Rome to personally appeal for an end, the sanctions were part of growing global condemnation of the offensive.
Asked by reporters if U.S. President Joe Biden has planned any more direct diplomatic overtures toward Putin, whose ground and air forces are pushing an offensive on Ukraine’s key cities, Psaki said no.
“I would say that a moment where a leader is ... in the middle of invading a sovereign country is not the moment where diplomacy feels appropriate,” Psaki told reporters at a White House briefing. “It does not mean we have ruled out diplomacy forever.”
Psaki said the U.S. was preparing individual sanctions on Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, likely to include travel bans. The announcement came hours after the European Union announced it intended to freeze Putin’s assets, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told NATO leaders his country would also sanction Putin and Lavrov.
Read:Explosions heard in Kyiv early Friday as Russia presses Ukraine assault
Psaki said the U.S. would also newly sanction the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which functions as a sovereign wealth fund meant to draw capital into the Russian economy.
The U.S. and European allies announced sweeping asset freezes and other penalties Thursday against Russia’s banks, state-owned enterprises and elites, but they spared Russia’s leader and foreign minister in that round.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the Biden administration’s talks internally on the matter, said there was debate among administration officials about whether to include Lavrov in the sanctions, as some wanted to ensure a path for diplomatic contact remained open.
While the sanctions to be imposed would not ban contact between, for example, Putin and Biden, or U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Lavrov, they put a new chill on what had been weeks of repeated diplomatic efforts with Russia as Putin built up forces on Ukraine’s borders. The debate on including Lavrov went back and forth, and was one of the reasons the individual sanctions were not announced with Thursday’s other measures.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, called the allies’ decision to freeze the assets of Putin himself the right one.
“It was President Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine. ... And he is the one responsible for the war that the Russian Federation is now waging on us,” Markarova told reporters at Ukraine’s embassy in Washington.
Read: Biden and Europe waiting on one key sanction against Russia
Friday’s U.S. measures block Putin and Lavrov, whom the Treasury Department’s formal announcement of the sanctions described as Putin’s “chief propagandist,” from access to any assets within reach of U.S. officials, and bar anyone in the United States from doing business with them. Members of Russia’s security council also were sanctioned.
It was unclear what the practical impact on the two men would be and how important their assets in Europe were.
“I can assure you that if you got major assets and all of a sudden you can’t get hold of them, it will cost you,” said EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell.
EU ministers have said that even further sanctions were still possible, including booting Russia out of SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.
“The debate about SWIFT is not off the table, it will continue,” Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said.
Admonishing Russia further, the Council of Europe suspended Russia from the continent’s foremost human rights organization. The 47-nation council said Russia remained a member and continued to be bound by the relevant human rights conventions.
Undeterred in the game of punitive sanctions, Russia started its own tit-for-tat measures, banning British flights to and over its territory in retaliation to a similar U.K. ban on Aeroflot flights.
Russian authorities also announced the “partial restriction” of access to Facebook after the social media network limited the accounts of several Kremlin-backed media.
Yet with the Kremlin’s eyes fully targeted on expanding the attacks on Ukraine, almost all the action was still going one way.
In terms unheard since the Cold War, threats were flying from all sides and ran through society.
In a sign of papal anger, Pope Francis went to the Russian Embassy to “express his concern about the war,” the Vatican said. It was an extraordinary, hands-on gesture, since usually popes receive ambassadors and heads of state in the Vatican.
The May 28 UEFA Champions League final, the Super Bowl of European soccer, was stripped from St. Petersburg and will move Paris. Formula One dropped this season’s Russian Grand Prix at Sochi in protest.
And in pop culture, the wildly popular Eurovision song contest banned Russia from the May finals in Turin, Italy.
Countries in Asia and the Pacific have joined the U.S., the EU and others in the West in piling on punitive measures against Russian banks and leading companies. The nations have also set up export controls aimed at starving Russia’s industries and military of semiconductors and other high-tech products.
“Japan must clearly show its position that we will never tolerate any attempt to change the status quo by force,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters Friday.
Taiwan announced Friday that it would join in economic sanctions, although it did not specify what those would be. They could potentially be focused on export control of semiconductor chips, of which Taiwan is the dominant producer.
While most nations in Asia rallied to support Ukraine, China has continued to denounce sanctions against Russia and blamed the U.S. and its allies for provoking Moscow. Beijing, worried about American power in Asia, has increasingly aligned its foreign policy with Russia to challenge the West.
“The Chinese government is following through on easing trade restrictions with Russia and that is simply unacceptable,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison complained. “You don’t go and throw a lifeline to Russia in the middle of a period when they’re invading another country.”
Modi urges Putin to halt military offensive in Ukraine
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to immediately halt military action against Ukraine, underscoring the need for a diplomatic solution to the standoff.
Modi dialled the Russian President on Thursday night, hours after Ukraine sought India's intervention in resolving the crisis that reportedly claimed at least 68 lives.
"(The) Prime Minister appealed for an immediate cessation of violence, and called for concerted efforts from all sides to return to the path of diplomatic negotiations and dialogue," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.
Also read: Ukraine seeks Indian intervention in ending Russian offensive
During the short conversation, Modi also expressed "India's concerns regarding the safety of the Indian citizens in Ukraine, especially students”, making it clear that his government attaches highest priority to their safe exit, the PMO said.
Earlier on Thursday, Ukraine's envoy in Delhi sought Modi's intervention in ending the Russian offensive.
"Modi ji is one of the most powerful, respected world leaders. You have a privileged, strategic relation with Russia. If Modiji speaks to Putin we are hopeful he'll respond," Ukraine's Ambassador Igor Polikha told the local media.
Also read: Explosions heard in Kyiv early Friday as Russia presses Ukraine assault
"India should be much more actively engaged, given the privileged relation India has with Russia. Not just for our safety, but of your own citizen's safety too, we need intervention of India.
Why Putin uses WWII to justify attacks in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin told the world in the lead-up to Thursday’s attacks on Ukraine that his operation aims to “denazify” Ukraine, a country with a Jewish president who lost relatives in the Holocaust and who heads a Western-backed, democratically elected government.
The Holocaust, World War II and Nazism have been important tools for Putin in his bid to legitimize Russia’s moves in Ukraine, but historians see their use as disinformation and a cynical ploy to further the Russian leader’s aims.
Israel has proceeded cautiously, seeking not to jeopardize its security ties with the Kremlin, despite what it considers the sacred memory of the 6 million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust.
Here’s a closer look at how the ghosts of the past are shaping today’s conflict:
THE WAR THAT DEFINES RUSSIA
World War II, in which the Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people, is a linchpin of Russia’s national identity. In today’s Russia, officials bristle at any questioning of the USSR’s role.
Some historians say this has been coupled with an attempt by Russia at retooling certain historical truths from the war. They say Russia has tried to magnify the Soviet role in defeating the Nazis while playing down any collaboration by Soviet citizens in the persecution of Jews.
On Ukraine, Russia has tried to link the country to Nazism, particularly those who have led it since a pro-Russian leadership was toppled in 2014.
Read: ‘The worst sunrise in my life’: Ukrainians wake to attack
This goes back to 1941 when Ukraine, at the time part of the Soviet Union, was occupied by Nazi Germany. Some Ukrainian nationalists welcomed the Nazi occupiers, in part as a way to challenge their Soviet opponents, according to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial. Historians say that, like in other countries, there was also collaboration.
Some of Ukraine’s politicians since 2014 have sought to glorify nationalist fighters from the era, focusing on their opposition to Soviet rule rather than their collaboration and documented crimes against Jews, as well as Poles living in Ukraine.
But making the leap from that to claiming Ukraine’s current government is a Nazi state does not reflect the reality of its politics, including the landslide election of a Jewish president and the aim of many Ukrainians to strengthen the country’s democracy, reduce corruption and move closer to the West.
“In terms of all of the sort of constituent parts of Nazism, none of that is in play in Ukraine. Territorial ambitions. State-sponsored terrorism. Rampant antisemitism. Bigotry. A dictatorship. None of those are in play. So this is just total fiction,” said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, a history professor at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.
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What’s more, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and has said that three of his grandfather’s brothers were killed by German occupiers while his grandfather survived the war. That hasn’t stopped Russian officials from comparing Zelenskyy to Jews who were forced to collaborate with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
HOLOCAUST DISTORTION
Putin’s attempts to stretch history for political motives is part of a trend seen in other countries as well. Most prominently is Poland, where authorities are advancing a nationalist narrative at odds with mainstream scholarship, including through a 2018 law that regulates Holocaust speech.
The legislation sought to fight back against claims that Poland, a victim of Nazi Germany, bore responsibility for the Holocaust. The law angered Israel, where many felt it was an attempt to whitewash the fact that some Poles did kill Jews during the German occupation during World War II. Yad Vashem also came out against the legislation.
Havi Dreifuss, a historian at Tel Aviv University and Yad Vashem, said the world was now dealing with both Holocaust denial and Holocaust distortion, where countries or institutions were bringing forth their own interpretations of history that were damaging to the commemoration of the Holocaust.
Read: Ukraine says Russian army attacked from Belarus
“Whoever deals with the period of the Holocaust must first and foremost be committed to the complex reality that occurred then and not with wars over memory that exist today,” she said.
ISRAELI INTERESTS
The Holocaust is central to Israel’s national identity. The country comes to a two-minute standstill on its Holocaust remembrance day. Schoolchildren, trade groups and soldiers makes regular trips to Yad Vashem’s museum. Stories of the last cohort of Holocaust survivors constantly make the news.
Israel has butted heads with certain countries, like Poland, over the memory of the Holocaust. But Israel has appeared more reticent to challenge Putin and his narrative, according to some observers, because of its current security interests. Israel relies on coordination with Russia to allow it to strike targets in Syria, which it says are often weapons caches destined for Israel’s enemies.
Israel came under fire from historians in 2020 after a speech by Putin and a separate video presentation at a meeting of world leaders in Jerusalem to commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, which they said skewed toward his narrative and away from the historical facts.
Israel was conspicuously muted in its criticism of Russia in the lead-up to the attacks on Ukraine. Commentator Raviv Drucker wrote in the daily Haaretz that Israel was “on the wrong side of history” with its response, which initially sought to support Ukraine while not rattling Russia. On Thursday, Israel condemned Russia’s attacks as “a grave violation of the international order.”
Vera Michlin-Shapir, a former official at Israel’s National Security Council and the author of “Fluid Russia,” a book about the country’s national identity, said that Israel’s regional security concerns were of greater interest than challenging Russia on its narrative.
“Russia can provide weapons systems to our worst enemies and therefore Israel is proceeding very cautiously — you could say too cautiously — because there is an issue here that is at the heart of Israel’s security,” she said.
UN chief urges Putin to ‘give peace a chance’ in Ukraine
The head of the United Nations implored Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday night not to attack Ukraine and to “give peace a chance,” a plea made just minutes before Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine.
The televised announcement came as U.N. Security Council members were pressing Russia to reverse course. The council had hastily gathered for an emergency meeting hours after Russia said rebels in eastern Ukraine had asked Moscow for military assistance, an announcement that immediately fueled fears that Moscow was laying the groundwork for war.
“If indeed an operation is being prepared, I have only one thing to say from the bottom of my heart: President Putin, stop your troops from attacking Ukraine. Give peace a chance. Too many people have already died,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the council.
Read:Russia evacuating embassy in Ukraine as crisis escalates
Less than a half hour later, while members called on Russia to halt its confrontational moves, Putin announced a military operation that he said was meant to protect civilians. He warned other countries that any effort to interfere with the Russian operation would lead to “consequences they have never seen.”
It wasn’t immediately clear whether council members were aware of the development.
The council, where Russia holds the rotating presidency this month, was meeting just two days after another emergency session where other members expressed no support for Moscow’s decision to recognize two rebel regions of Ukraine as independent and to order Russian troops there for “peacekeeping.”
Council diplomats are now finalizing a draft of a resolution that would declare that Russia is violating the U.N. Charter, international law, and a 2015 council resolution on Ukraine, a diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. The resolution would urge Russia to come back into compliance immediately, the diplomat said.
Read: Ukraine's economy is another victim of Russia's 'hybrid war'
Earlier Wednesday, diplomats from dozens of countries took the floor at the U.N. General Assembly to deplore Russia’s actions toward the country and plead for diplomacy.
Russia and ally Syria defended Moscow’s moves. But even China, which usually takes Russia’s side at the U.N., spoke up for the world body’s longstanding principle of respecting countries’ sovereignty and internationally recognized borders, while not mentioning Russia by name.
Echoing a narrative being broadcast to Russians at home, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia portrayed his country as responding to the plight of beleaguered people in the breakaway areas. Russia claims Ukraine is engaging in violence and oppression, which Ukraine denies.
“We urge you today to focus on reining in Kyiv,” Nebenzia said.
Syria accused the West of using the assembly to pressure Moscow.
“The Ukrainian crisis was created by the Western states, led by the United States, to divide people and to undermine Russian security,” Ambassador Bassam al-Sabbagh said.
Meeting a day after Western powers and some other countries imposed new sanctions on Russia, the 193-member General Assembly didn’t take any collective action. But the comments from nearly 70 nations, with more scheduled for Monday, represented the broadest forum of global sentiment since the crisis dramatically escalated this week.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba implored countries to use tough economic sanctions, strong messages and “active diplomacy” to get Russia to back off. A lackluster response would jeopardize not only Ukraine but the concept of international law and global security, he warned.
“We need to use this last chance for action and stop Russia where it is,” Kuleba said.
Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014, and pro-Russia rebels have since been fighting Ukrainian forces in the eastern areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. More than 14,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
After weeks of rising tension as Moscow massed over 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday recognized the two regions’ independence and ordered Russian forces there as what he called “peacekeepers.”
Guterres disputed that, saying they are troops entering another country without its consent.