Category Archives: Ukraine

‘We left our dad in Kyiv’: young Ukrainian boy in tears after fleeing capital – video

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Families in Ukraine are being torn apart with many women and children having no choice but to leave their husbands and fathers behind after Ukrainian authorities ordered men aged 18-60 to stay and fight Kremlin forces.

'We left Dad in Kiev and dad will be selling things and helping our heroes, our army, he might even fight,' Mark Goncharuk, a young boy choking with tears, said as he and his relatives fled the capital.

As missiles fell on Ukrainian cities, nearly 400,000 Ukrainian civilians, mainly women and children, have fled into neighbouring countries.

• This video was amended on 28 February 2022 to correct an error in Reuters wires copy. 

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Putin signals escalation as he puts Russia’s nuclear force on high alert

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Deterrence order given as Zelenskiy says Ukraine delegation will meet Russian officials at Belarus border

Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to put Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert, in the latest signal from the Russian leader that he is prepared to resort to the most extreme level of brinkmanship is his effort to achieve victory in Ukraine.

The US accused Putin of “totally unacceptable” escalation and made clear that it would keep up its support of Ukraine and punitive measures on Russia. With the EU also announcing unprecedented new measures against Moscow, it was clear that Putin’s assault on Ukraine had failed to yield the quick victories he had anticipated but had instead rallied a concerted western response that was potentially devastating for Russia’s economy.

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Moscow braces for rouble to crash at least 25% as new sanctions hit

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Russian currency expected to plunge in first day’s trading since Swift ban and ECB says state-owned Sberbank subsidiaries are set to collapse

Moscow is bracing for economic panic when markets open on Monday morning, with the value of the rouble expected to plummet at least 25% after the US and European Union announced unprecedented sanctions over the weekend.

Those measures targeted the Russian central bank, which has intervened to prop up the value of the rouble following Vladimir Putin’s order to invade Ukraine. They also marked the first time Russian banks have been excluded from the Swift international payments system.

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Two top Russian billionaires speak out against war

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Oleg Deripaska and Ukrainian-born Mikhail Fridman call for peace, as activities come under threat from sanctions

Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska have become two of the country’s first leading businesspeople to speak out against Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Fridman, who is one of Russia’s richest men, controls private equity firm LetterOne and was a founder of Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest private bank. In a letter to his employees he called for an end to the “bloodshed”.

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UK considers banning Russian ships from British ports

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The NS Champion oil tanker, majority-owned by the Russian state, is due to berth in Orkney on Tuesday

The UK government is considering restricting Russian ships from using British ports after it emerged that a Russian-owned oil tanker is due to dock in Orkney this week.

The NS Champion, operated by Sovcomflot, a large shipping company majority-owned by the Russian state, is due to berth at Flotta oil terminal in Orkney on Tuesday to collect crude oil.

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Ukrainian president sceptical of upcoming meeting with Russia – video

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy says the Ukrainian and Russian delegations will meet without preconditions at Pripyat in Belarus. The Ukrainian president revealed that he was not confident that any progress would come from the meeting, but said he would do everything he could for the Ukrainian people

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Thousands gather in cities across the UK in support of Ukraine

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Trafalgar Square a sea of blue and yellow as demonstrators protest against brutal Russian invasion

Thousands of people gathered in cities across the UK for at times highly emotional rallies in support of Ukraine as the country defended itself against the brutal Russian invasion.

In London, Trafalgar Square was a sea of blue and yellow as protesters voiced anguish and despair at Russian president Vladimir Putin’s assault on the eastern European country.

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EU to ban Russian state-backed channels RT and Sputnik

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Ursula von der Leyen says stations will ‘no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war’

The EU has announced it will ban the Russian state-backed channels RT and Sputnik in an unprecedented move against the Kremlin media machine.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “Russia Today and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries, will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division in our union. So we are developing tools to ban their toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe.”

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Russian strategic slips lift Ukrainian morale, but should not obscure broader picture

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While the botched assault on Hostomel and the failure to take Kharkiv have surprised some commentators, these are but the opening salvos

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has so far been curiously uncoordinated, even haphazard, in its first four days – prompting fears that Kremlin may adopt more brutal and deadly methods to achieve victory at a higher cost.

Military analysts have been surprised by what they see as repeated errors, perhaps reflecting Vladimir Putin’s mistaken belief that Ukrainians had an underlying affinity with Russia and would simply acquiesce in the fall of Volodymyr Zelenskiy once Moscow’s troops rolled in.

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Putin’s nuclear posturing requires west to tread extremely carefully

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Challenge for Nato is to maintain support for Ukraine while making clear Russian leader has way out of crisis

Successive generations have experienced what it is like to feel the shadow of nuclear annihilation loom over their daily lives, from the Cuban crisis of 1962, to the missile standoff in Europe in the 1980s. This is shaping up to be our turn.

“I’ll be honest – I’m nervous,” Pavel Podvig, one of the world’s leading experts on Russian nuclear forces, said after Vladimir Putin declared a “special mode of combat duty of the deterrence forces”.

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‘A watershed moment’: EU shuts down airspace to Russia and finances weapons for Ukraine – video

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For the first time ever, the European Union will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons to a country under attack, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said, as she announced the bloc's commitment to supporting the Ukrainian war effort against Russia.

The EU will also shut down its airspace for any and all Russian aircraft and in another unprecedented step ruled it would ban Russian-state backed television channels RT and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries, so that the Kremlin media machine 'will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division in our union'

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Republican Tom Cotton refuses four times to condemn Trump on Ukraine

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The Republican senator Tom Cotton refused four times on Sunday to condemn or even comment on Donald Trump’s repeated praise for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

“If you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic,” Cotton told ABC’s This Week, “I’d encourage you to invite him on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can speak for themselves.”

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People gather around the world to show solidarity with Ukraine – video

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Thousands of people have gathered in cities around the world to show their support for Ukraine as Russia continues its invasion. More than 100,000 gathered in Berlin bearing signs reading 'stop the war', 'Putin's last war' and 'we stand with Ukraine'. From Tel Aviv to Tbilisi, demonstrators have let their disgust at Vladimir Putin's actions be known as the conflict continues to escalate

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Ukraine appeals for foreign volunteers to join fight against Russia

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President Zelenskiy issues call to arms to foreign nationals in battle against ‘Russian war criminals’

Ukraine’s embattled president has issued a call to foreign nationals who are “friends of peace and democracy” to travel to the country to fight against the Russian invasion.

The appeal from Volodymyr Zelenskiy, published on the Ukrainian presidency’s website early on Sunday, said the Ukrainian armed forces were in the process of setting up a foreign legion unit for international volunteers.

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Fighting on streets of Kharkiv after Russian tanks enter Ukrainian city – video

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Scenes from Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, show Ukrainian soldiers fighting on street corners with rocket-propelled grenades. Other videos show an alleged Russian convoy that was stopped by Ukrainian soldiers, tanks driving through residential areas and various missile fragments stuck in ground near residential buildings

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Scholz announces €100bn rise in German defence spending after Russia’s Ukraine invasion – video

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Germany departed from longstanding policy again on Sunday with chancellor Olaf Scholz announcing the government would invest more than 2% of GDP in the military from its 2022 budget. He praised Russians who protested against the invasion for their bravery 

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Hundreds of thousands of refugees flee Ukraine as fighting escalates – video

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People are fleeing to Ukraine's borders with EU countries as they try to escape the invasion from Russia. The UN refugee agency is warning that as many as 5 million Ukrainians could leave

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Russia-Ukraine war latest news: US condemns Putin’s nuclear deterrence order; rouble crashes as markets open – live updates

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Vladimir Putin said nuclear move came after aggressive statements by Nato countries; satellite images show ground forces heading to capital; Ukrainian president says two sides to meet on Belarus border

Ukrainians are waking for the fourth day since Russia invaded and words of defiance are dominating social media this morning.

“It’s another morning in Ukraine and Russia still can’t advance in Kyiv,” Illia Ponomarenko, defence reporter at the Kyiv Independent writes.

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Ukraine: what will China do? There are signs it is uneasy about Putin’s methods

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Analysis: Beijing has held off from backing Russia, raising questions about the extent of any partnership

China’s decision to abstain on Friday night at the end of the UN security council vote condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine may be a source of deep frustration in the west, but it will also send a nervous tremor through the Russian ministry of foreign affairs that China’s protection is not unconditional.

UK-based diplomats, looking at the stance adopted by China in the middle of the week, were expecting Beijing to join Russia in voting against the US-sponsored motion, but in common with the United Arab Emirates and India, it abstained, leaving Russia isolated in deploying its veto power as a permanent member of the security council.

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