Russia-Ukraine WarWhat Happened on Day 3 of Russia’s Assault on Ukraine

Western intelligence reports indicated that the Russian advance had been slowed, if only for the moment. The Russian priority remained the capture of Kyiv.

Follow the latest updates on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Ukrainian servicemen at the military airbase of Vasylkiv in the Kyiv region on Sunday.Credit...Maksim Levin/Reuters
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The New York Times

Ukrainian forces take aim at Russian supply lines as battles rage in multiple cities.

As Russian forces pressed into Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Ukraine’s defense forces and civilian volunteers battled to hold off Russia’s invasion for a fourth day on Sunday as President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said his country’s fighters had “successfully repelled enemy attacks.” Here are the latest developments:

  • A lawmaker from Mr. Zelensky’s faction, David Arakhamia, said Ukraine “has agreed to meet Russia with no conditions” for talks on the conflict, but there were no immediate details on who would meet, or where. The government of Belarus said the two sides would hold talks at the Belarus-Ukraine border. Earlier, Mr. Zelensky had rejected the Kremlin’s offer to hold talks in Belarus, saying the country was not neutral territory because Russia had carried out part of its invasion from there.

  • President Vladimir V. Putin has ordered his military to place Russia’s nuclear forces on alert. He gave the order in a televised meeting with his defense minister and top military commander.

  • Fighting drew closer to the center of Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, according to videos and photographs analyzed by The New York Times. The footage showed Ukrainians firing rockets toward Russian troops, as well as some Russian military vehicles burning and others being ransacked by Ukrainian troops.

  • As Ukraine’s armed forces targeted Russian supply lines, the Kremlin’s offensive seemed likely to intensify, as U.S. officials said that most of the more than 150,000 Russian troops who had massed around Ukraine were now engaged in the fighting.

  • In response to the invasion, a growing number of European countries said they would ban Russian aircraft from their airspace, and Germany’s chancellor announced a significant increase in military spending, reversing a longstanding policy.

Safak TimurMegan Specia
Feb. 27, 2022, 12:38 p.m. ET

Safak Timur and

Turkish officials, in a reversal, label Russia’s invasion a ‘war.’

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A Russian Navy vessel sailing in the Bosporus near Istanbul earlier this month.Credit...Yoruk Isik/Reuters

Turkey will implement a 1936 international treaty that would potentially ban both Ukrainian and Russian warships from passing through the straits connecting the Black Sea to the south, Turkey's top diplomat said on Sunday.

Turkey said it had decided that the invasion of Ukraine and the resulting fighting constituted a war. The word “war” allows Turkey to close the straits to vessels of the countries involved.

“To be honest, we have reached the conclusion that this now turned into war,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a televised interview on the CNN Turk news network.

Turkey on Sunday described the Russian invasion of Ukraine as “war,” with consecutive tweets and statements from top officials of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr. Erdogan had earlier called the invasion a “military operation” of Russia that violated international law.

Ukraine has been appealing to Turkey to stop Russian warships from passing through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, which fall under the 1936 Montreux Convention.

Mr. Cavusoglu mentioned in his remarks Sunday that both countries still have the right to move vessels to home bases in the Black Sea.

“There shouldn’t be abuses,” he said. “It shouldn’t join the war after crossing the strait saying that it would go to its base.”

On Saturday, a short time after President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine posted on Twitter indicating that Turkey had banned the Russia passage of warships through the Black Sea, Turkey denied there had been any measures taken.

A Turkish official close to Erdogan who asked to remain anonymous as he is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said that Mr. Erdogan did not tell Mr. Zelensky that he had agreed to a ban on the passage of Russian military vessels.

The confusion may have come from a grammar mistake, which is common for Ukrainian speakers, since the language has no articles, and he may have meant to say “a” ban rather than “the” ban in his English language post.

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The New York Times
Feb. 27, 2022, 5:56 a.m. ET

Two hours after reporting that 200,000 Ukrainians had arrived in neighboring countries, the United Nations refugee agency vastly raised the figure based upon reporting from national authorities. “The current total is now 368,000 and continues to rise,” the agency tweeted.

Monika Pronczuk
Feb. 27, 2022, 5:41 a.m. ET

Reporting from Brussels

Belgium became the latest European nation to close its airspace to Russian airlines. Prime Minister Alexander De Croo tweeted: “Our European skies are open skies. They’re open for those who connect people, not for those who seek to brutally aggress.”

Feb. 27, 2022, 5:35 a.m. ET

Footage shows fighting drawing closer to the center of Ukraine’s second-largest city.

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Russian troops have escalated their assault on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, according to videos and photographs analyzed by The New York Times.

The imagery from Sunday shows clashes between Russian and Ukrainian troops occurring closer to the city center than was previously seen, suggesting a deeper Russian incursion into Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine.

In several locations, it appears that these advances may have stalled. Videos show some Russian vehicles burning, and others being ransacked by Ukrainian troops.

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Tyler Hicks
Feb. 27, 2022, 5:25 a.m. ET

Reporting from Ukraine

Civilian volunteers sorted empty bottles to be used for Molotov cocktails in a parking lot in Dnipro, Ukraine, on Sunday.

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Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Safak Timur
Feb. 27, 2022, 5:18 a.m. ET

Reporting from Istanbul

A spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey called for an “immediate halt of Russian attacks and the start of ceasefire negotiations.”

Andrew E. Kramer
Feb. 27, 2022, 5:08 a.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

An around-the-clock curfew was in effect on Sunday in Kyiv, with only soldiers, emergency workers and newly armed civilian volunteers allowed to be on the streets. We were confined to a hotel, unable to report. Ukrainian news media reported no major fighting in the city, but on the southern outskirts of the city a fuel depot bombed early Sunday morning burned, sending up a gigantic plume of smoke.

Stephen Castle
Feb. 27, 2022, 5:06 a.m. ET

Reporting from London

Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, told the BBC on Sunday that she would support Britons who want to go to Ukraine to take up arms for the Ukrainian resistance. She also said that, if Russia escalates its invasion, its leaders and military commanders could be charged with war crimes.

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Credit...Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

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The New York Times
Feb. 27, 2022, 4:57 a.m. ET

In Photos: Scenes from Kyiv early on Sunday.

Stanley Reed
Feb. 27, 2022, 4:55 a.m. ET

Reporting from London

Ukraine’s gas pipeline operator said Sunday that transmission was continuing “normally” and that it had not recorded a drop in pressure because of an explosion in the area of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city.

The Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine added that it was unable to visually inspect the site because of military activity in the city.

Ukraine is one of the major transmission routes for Russian gas to Europe, and concerns about disruptions have driven up European gas prices.

Liz Alderman
Feb. 27, 2022, 4:49 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

French customs authorities have intercepted a Russian cargo ship suspected of belonging to Russian interests targeted by the new U.S. and European sanctions, according to the French finance ministry.

The boat, which was transporting vehicles to St. Petersburg, is owned by PSB Lizing, a Russia-based financial company on the sanctions list. It was diverted to a port in northern France on Saturday for “inspections,” the French ministry said on Twitter.

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Chris Stanford
Feb. 27, 2022, 4:38 a.m. ET

Reporting from London

The International Judo Federation announced that it was suspending President Vladimir Putin from his post as the group’s honorary president.

Jason Gutierrez
Feb. 27, 2022, 4:37 a.m. ET

Reporting from Manila

The Philippines’ top diplomat traveled to Poland on Saturday to welcome 13 Filipinos who were the first from their country to be evacuated from Ukraine. Foreign Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. met the evacuees at the Rava-Ruska border crossing shortly after noon on Saturday. A total of 350 Filipinos are estimated to be in Ukraine, and Mr. Locsin said in a statement that his government was working “to repatriate them as soon as possible.”

Emma Bubola
Feb. 27, 2022, 4:29 a.m. ET

Reporting from London

Britain's Ministry of Defense said fighting overnight in the Ukraine capital, Kyiv, had been less intense than the night before.

Austin Ramzy
Feb. 27, 2022, 4:16 a.m. ET

The United Nations refugee agency said on Sunday that more than 200,000 people had fled the violence in Ukraine. Most have entered neighboring countries to the west, including Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia and Romania.

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Liz Alderman
Feb. 27, 2022, 4:05 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

As oil and gas prices surge amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European energy ministers will hold an emergency meeting in Brussels on Monday to discuss the situation, France's ecology minister, Barbara Pompili, said on Twitter.

Marc Santora
Feb. 27, 2022, 3:43 a.m. ET

Reporting from Lviv, Ukraine

Ukraine says it has slowed Russia’s advance with the help of volunteers.

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Volunteers gathered in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, on Saturday to prepare to join the country’s defense against Russian forces.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

LVIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian army, with the assistance of growing ranks of citizen soldiers, said on Sunday that it had slowed Russia’s advance by wreaking havoc on Russian supply lines while fighting to keep control over the cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv.

“Enemy troops, deprived of timely replenishment of fuel and ammunition, are stopped,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement at 6 a.m. on Sunday. “The personnel of the occupying forces, the vast majority of whom are young conscripts, are exhausted by previous military exercises and have low morale.”

It was impossible to independently verify the claims made in the statement, but the Ukrainian military’s focus on what it suggested was a lack of will on the Russian side seemed part of a broader strategy to tap into the resolve of a nation fighting to hold onto its independence and to undermine the determination of the Russian forces.

For its part, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said on Sunday that its military had completely blockaded the Ukrainian port cities of Kherson and Berdyansk.

The main tactic of the Russian forces, according to the Ukrainian military, is to capture small towns, villages and highways, where some of the most pitched fighting was thought to be taking place.

On Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called on people from around the world to come and help defend Ukraine.

“All friends of Ukraine who want to join the defense — come. We will give you a weapon,” Mr. Zelensky said.

Under martial law in Ukraine, all men of fighting age who are in good health must join the country’s defense, and many are doing so with the determination of those protecting their homes.

It is a dynamic the Ukrainians hope can help them gain an edge in a war against an enemy with vastly superior weaponry.

“Due to strong resistance from the civilian population, units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard and the National Police, attempts to take control of large cities were unsuccessful,” according to the Ukrainian statement on Sunday.

Marc Santora
Feb. 27, 2022, 3:42 a.m. ET

Reporting from Lviv, Ukraine

The mood in the historic center of Lviv, in western Ukraine, is decidedly more anxious. People are being stopped on street corners as Ukrainian soldiers hunt for Russian saboteurs. The city is preparing itself for what all assume is a coming battle, but it is also a place of refuge where, in addition to soldiers on street corners, you see families sitting with luggage, stranded.

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Anton Troianovski
Feb. 27, 2022, 3:24 a.m. ET

Reporting from Moscow

Zelensky rejects the Kremlin’s offer to hold talks in Belarus, saying it’s not neutral territory.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine speaking on Sunday in Kyiv.Credit...Ukrainian Presidency Press Office, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

MOSCOW — President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday rejected the Kremlin’s offer to hold talks in Belarus because the country had taken Russia’s side in the fighting in Ukraine.

Mr. Zelensky said that he wanted talks with Russia, but that the only way they could be “honest” and end the hostilities would be if they were held in a neutral country.

Russia has carried out part of its invasion from Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north.

“We want peace, we want to meet, we want an end to the war,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video address. “Warsaw, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul, Baku — we proposed all that to the Russian side. Any other city would work for us, too, in a country from whose territory rockets are not being fired.”

The Kremlin said on Sunday that it had already sent a delegation to Belarus for talks. It has not indicated that it is prepared to hold them in any other country.

Mr. Zelensky, who has repeatedly addressed the people of Russia in videos he has posted to social media in the past week, spoke in Russian on Sunday to address the people of Belarus. The country is holding a referendum on Sunday that is expected to tighten the grip of its strongman leader, President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko.

“How will you look your children in the eyes?” Mr. Zelensky said. “How will you look into each others’ eyes? How will you look into your neighbors’ eyes? We are your neighbors. We Ukrainians.”

“I genuinely hope you become the good, secure Belarus that Belarus was not so long ago,” he added. “Make the right choice. I’m sure this is the main choice of your great people.”

Anton Troianovski
Feb. 27, 2022, 2:48 a.m. ET

Reporting from Moscow

President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the Kremlin’s offer of talks in Belarus because he said that country has taken Russia’s side in the conflict. In remarks delivered in Russian, Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine wanted talks with Russia on ending the fighting, but insisted on holding them in another city like Warsaw or Istanbul. The Kremlin said on Sunday that a Russian delegation had already arrived in Belarus for potential talks.

Anton Troianovski
Feb. 27, 2022, 2:12 a.m. ET

Reporting from Moscow

President Vladimir V. Putin, making his first public remarks since Friday, referred to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a “special operation to provide assistance to the people’s republics of the Donbas.” The remarks, made during a brief televised address congratulating soldiers on Special Forces Day, were the latest example of the Kremlin hiding the true extent of the war from the Russian public.

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Marc Santora
Feb. 27, 2022, 1:58 a.m. ET

Reporting from Lviv, Ukraine

The Ukrainian government remained in control of Kyiv, the capital, as the Russian invasion entered its fourth day, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement released at 6 a.m. on Sunday. “The Russian occupiers are actively using sabotage and reconnaissance groups, which are destroying civilian infrastructure and killing civilians in large cities,” the statement said. The Ukrainians accused the Russians of violating humanitarian law, saying that an attack on an oil depot in Vasilkov, outside the city of Kyiv, and the destruction of a gas pipeline in Kharkiv were direct assaults on civilian infrastructure.

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Credit...Pierre Crom/Getty Images
Austin Ramzy
Feb. 27, 2022, 1:23 a.m. ET

Some Russian vehicles have broken through and entered the central part of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, a regional official said, as social media showed images of military trucks driving through the city early Sunday. Oleg Synegubov, head of the Kharkiv regional state administration, announced the incursion on Facebook and warned residents to seek shelter and not go outside.

Farnaz Fassihi
Feb. 27, 2022, 1:15 a.m. ET

Iranians chant ‘death to Putin’ as they defy their government, a Russian ally.

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Demonstrators expressed solidarity with the people of Ukraine and chanted “death to Putin” outside the Ukrainian Embassy in Tehran. The rally was a show of defiance to the Iranian government, a Russian ally.CreditCredit...Associated Press

Chanting “death to Putin,” a crowd of Iranians defied their government, an ally of Russia, by protesting outside the Ukrainian Embassy in Tehran on Saturday night, according to videos posted on social media.

The protest’s organizers had issued a call for people to join a public condemnation of the war in Ukraine and show solidarity with its people. The demonstrators waved Ukrainian flags, clapped their hands and shouted, “Long live Ukraine” and “The Russian Embassy is a den of spies.” Security guards watched over the crowd, which included children, but did not interfere, videos showed.

There had also been calls to demonstrate outside the Russian Embassy, but there was no indication that protesters had gathered there. A photograph shared on social media showed members of the Iranian special forces on motorcycles guarding the Russian Embassy and blocking access to its gates.

The Iranian government has not outright endorsed the invasion of Ukraine, but it has expressed support for Russia’s position. That appears to be deepening the growing rift between Iran’s leaders and its people. Many Iranians harbor deep mistrust of Russia and have expressed outrage on social media about the government’s attitude toward the war.

State media outlets have used the Kremlin’s terminology when reporting on the war, calling it “a special military operation,” not an invasion. A conservative former lawmaker in Iran, Ali Mottahari, wrote on Twitter that state broadcasters were reporting the news “like one of Russia’s colonies.”

“Iran must show its independence by condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Mr. Mottahari wrote.

A popular Iranian newspaper, Shahrvand, which is owned by the Iranian Red Crescent, ran a photo of President Vladimir V. Putin in emperor’s clothes, with the headline “King Putin: Is the former K.G.B. officer taking the world into a new Cold War?” The newspaper said the Red Crescent was ready to provide medical assistance to Ukraine.

With the Iranian economy crippled by U.S. sanctions imposed after President Donald J. Trump’s administration pulled out of the international deal over Iran’s nuclear program in 2018, the Iranian government has been looking east for support and sees Russia as a key ally. The Foreign Ministry has said that it is forging new political and economic alliances and long-term partnerships with both Russia and China.

President Ebrahim Raisi spoke by telephone with Mr. Putin on Thursday, the day the invasion began. He told Mr. Putin that he hoped for “the best outcome for the people of the region,” according to a statement released by Iran’s government.

“NATO’s expansion east is a serious threat to the stability and security of independent countries in different regions,” Mr. Raisi was said to have told Mr. Putin, echoing one of the Russian leader’s stated reasons for instigating the war.

Russia’s foreign ministry promptly said on Twitter that Mr. Raisi had “expressed understanding” about Russia’s security concerns.

Iran is also counting on Russia to help it secure its interests as talks in Vienna with the United States about reviving the 2015 nuclear deal reach their final stages. The Russian envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, has presented himself as a liaison between Iran and the West, posting regular updates and photos of the negotiations.

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Austin Ramzy, Muyi Xiao and Brenna Smith
Feb. 27, 2022, 12:15 a.m. ET

Russian forces struck an oil depot on the southern outskirts of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said early Sunday. A video verified by The Times showed the depot ablaze in the city of Vasylkiv, and flares could be seen from the city center of Kyiv overnight. Nataliia Balasynovych, the mayor of Vasylkiv, said on Facebook that Russian forces launched ballistic missile attacks followed by shelling. The attacks ignited an oil depot in the village of Kryachky, she said. The village is near a military air base that has been the site of intense fighting. Oleksyi Kuleba, a regional official, wrote on Facebook that the oil depot fire posed a threat of environmental disaster, but efforts to extinguish it were stalled by continued fighting. The Kyiv city government warned residents to close their windows to reduce the risk of breathing harmful smoke from the fire. Other videos verified by The Times show a second oil depot on fire in the city of Rovenky in the separatist region of Luhansk. Russian-backed officials there said that the fire was caused by a Ukrainian missile strike.

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Video verified by The Times shows an oil depot ablaze on the southern outskirts of Kyiv on Feb. 27. A Ukrainian official said that Russian forces struck the depot.
Andy Parsons
Feb. 26, 2022, 11:28 p.m. ET

Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia said on Sunday that his country would provide lethal weapons to the Ukrainian government as it tries to hold off the Russian advance. Mr. Morrison said the aid, which will be delivered through NATO, would supplement nonlethal equipment and supplies that Australia had already committed. The prime minister also said that Australia would prioritize visas for people fleeing Ukraine, but did not say how many would be granted.

Choe Sang-Hun
Feb. 26, 2022, 10:05 p.m. ET

Reporting from Seoul

North Korea has made what appears to be its first official comment on the Ukraine war, publishing a statement that blamed it on the United States’ “high-handedness and arbitrariness​” and “disregard of the legitimate demand of Russia for its security​.” “Gone are the days when the U.S. used to reign supreme​,” Ri Ji-song, a​ government analyst, said in the statement, which was posted Saturday on the website of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry. Russia is one of North Korea’s few powerful friends.

Amy Qin
Feb. 26, 2022, 8:10 p.m. ET

Reporting from Taipei, Taiwan

The Chinese ambassador to Ukraine, Fan Xianrong, appeared in a video on Sunday to rebut rumors that he had fled Kyiv and to urge Chinese nationals in the country to shelter at home. China has refrained from advising its citizens to evacuate the country, as some other governments have done, and Mr. Fan acknowledged the difficulties of arranging safe passage. He also called on Chinese nationals to be friendly toward Ukrainians and not to “provoke” them. “China’s policy towards Ukraine has always been friendly,” he said. Beijing has struggled to maintain a balancing act on the crisis and has declined to call the Russian attack an invasion.

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Maciek Nabrdalik
Feb. 26, 2022, 8:07 p.m. ET

This line of cars stretched for nearly two miles along the A4 motorway in Korczowa, Poland, near the Ukrainian border. Most of these cars were there to pick up family members who had fled the fighting in Ukraine.

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CreditCredit...Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times
Yu Young Jin
Feb. 26, 2022, 8:07 p.m. ET

Reporting from Seoul

Four South Korean citizens escaped from Ukraine on Saturday with the help of the South Korean embassy in neighboring Romania. Nineteen more are on their way.

Maciek NabrdalikMauricio Lima
Feb. 26, 2022, 7:28 p.m. ET

Maciek Nabrdalik and

Ukrainians escape to neighboring Poland.

Credit...Maciek Nabrdalik and Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

More than 150,000 refugees have fled Ukraine this week, according to the United Nations, with many heading toward Polish border crossings.

Ukrainians have tried to escape by train, by car and by foot as Russian forces close in on major cities, including Kyiv, the capital, and Kharkiv, in the northeast. Some have wound up in mileslong traffic jams or long lines at customs, and others have fled by train to cities like Przemysl, Poland, near the border.

In the Polish village of Medyka, Ukrainians waited for relatives to cross the border and reach them. The village of Korczowa opened to pedestrian traffic on Saturday, offering another window to escaping civilians.

In Korczowa, Lidia Gaszewska-Baran and Heorhii Veselov, who work at a bakery in Poznan, Poland, gave away food and hygienic items to migrants who made it through the crossing.

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The New York Times
Feb. 26, 2022, 7:02 p.m. ET

From St. Petersburg to New Delhi, protesters take to the streets against war.

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Protesters around the world rallied in support of Ukraine on Saturday, calling on Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, to end its invasion.

In St. Petersburg, the Russian police have detained hundreds of protesters this week. Ukrainians in major cities like London and Paris took to the streets on Saturday to demonstrate their support for Ukraine’s embattled leaders and their opposition to the war.

“We don’t want war,” said Tetiana Vyborna, a Ukrainian living in Paris. “We are just defending ourselves.”

Feb. 26, 2022, 6:52 p.m. ET

Video captures fierce fighting near Kyiv.

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A video posted to social media on Saturday morning shows Ukrainian soldiers engaging in intense fighting 40 miles northwest of Kyiv, the capital, along one of Russia’s major attack lines toward the city.

The scene unfolded at a traffic circle near the town of Ivankiv, and shows a Ukrainian soldier walking behind several Ukrainian armored vehicles. A short distance away, two vehicles are ablaze. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense has been promoting the footage on Facebook, saying, “Whoever comes to us with a sword will die from the sword.”

The soldier is carrying what appears to be an NLAW shoulder-fired missile, the kind Britain sent recently to Ukraine. American-made Javelin antitank guided missiles have also been sent to the country in recent weeks. And in a reversal of Germany’s previous position, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced plans on Saturday to send 1,000 antitank rockets and other weapons to Ukraine.

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Azi Paybarah
Feb. 26, 2022, 6:33 p.m. ET

Putin’s critics call for boycotts of Russian vodka.

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The alcohol department at a supermarket in Moscow. In some parts of the United States and other countries, officials are removing Russian vodka from shelves.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Vodka, a drink that was popularized in the West by James Bond and that has long been one of Russia’s most visible exports, is now the target of international anger over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In New Hampshire, where liquor and wine are sold through state-run stores, Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, announced on Saturday the removal of “Russian-made and Russian-branded spirits from our liquor and wine outlets until further notice.” In Ohio, where the state contracts with private businesses to sell liquor, Gov. Mike DeWine, also a Republican, announced a halt to state purchases and sales of Russian Standard Vodka.

L. Louise Lucas, a top Democrat in the Virginia State Senate, is calling for “the removal of all Russian vodka and any other Russian products” from Virginia’s nearly 400 state-run Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority stores.

And Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, wrote on Twitter, “Dump all the Russian vodka and, alongside ammo and missiles, send the empty bottles to Ukraine to use for Molotov cocktails.”

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Canada’s most populated province, announced on Friday that it would remove “all products produced in Russia” from its more than 600 stores. Similar removals were underway in the provinces of Manitoba and Newfoundland, Reuters reported.

Boycotts of highly visible imports during times of conflict are nothing new.

In 2003, for example, France’s opposition to the United States-led military action in Iraq led some American politicians to boycott French wine and try to rename French fries as “freedom fries” (even though the dish probably originated in Belgium).

And just as in earlier efforts, boycotting Russian vodka may be more symbolic than strategic.

Vodka has a long history in Russian culture, with The Times once describing it as “an inseparable part of Russian social life.” Colorless and odorless, it can be combined with countless types of mixers to make a wide array of concoctions. That versatility helped it take hold in the United States market, leading to a fierce competition among vodka makers from various countries.

But while 76.9 million nine-liter cases of vodka were sold in the United States in 2020 — generating nearly $7 billion in revenue for distillers, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, an industry trade group — Russia’s share of the market isn’t as large as popular imagination may suggest.

Russia accounted for a little more than 1 percent of the dollar amount of vodka imported into the U.S. in 2017, Thrillist reported, citing data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

France — whose vodkas include Grey Goose, Cîroc, Gallant and MontBlanc — accounted for about 39 percent of total vodka import value, the most of any country, Thrillist reported. Sweden, with vodkas like Absolut and DQ, accounted for about 18 percent. The other top importers were the Netherlands (17 percent), Latvia (10 percent), Britain (5 percent) and Poland (5 percent).

In Pennsylvania, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Saturday, “true Russian brands are hard to find.”

Maciek Nabrdalik
Feb. 26, 2022, 6:21 p.m. ET

Employees from a catering company, Viking Kitchen, delivered thousands of bagged lunches for refugees at the Przemysl train station near the border of Poland and Ukraine.

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Credit...Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times
Valerie Hopkins
Feb. 26, 2022, 6:08 p.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

The shelling in Kyiv is ongoing. The sky has been like this for the last five minutes.

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Credit...Valerie Hopkins/The New York Times

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Andrew E. Kramer
Feb. 26, 2022, 6:02 p.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

Two large explosions shook Kyiv shortly before 1 a.m. The country’s deputy interior minister had warned earlier of an impending airstrike.

Feb. 26, 2022, 6:00 p.m. ET

Yousur Al-HlouMichael Downey and

After missile strike in Kyiv, residents go back underground.

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After days in a bomb shelter, a family returned to their home in Kyiv for breakfast, and witnessed a missile strike on a neighboring apartment building.CreditCredit...Michael Downey for the New York Times



KYIV, UKRAINE — After a long night of fighting in the capital, a missile hit a high-rise apartment building outside the city center early Saturday morning, injuring six people, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

Residents in the neighborhood said they had sought shelter in an underground parking garage when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began early Thursday morning. Since then, many have remained there with their children, expecting at any moment the sound of air raid sirens to herald more airstrikes.

Tetyana Khytryk was sheltering in the garage with her husband and two children, Polina, 4, and Nazar, 6. She teared up recounting how they had returned to their apartment early Saturday for food and had witnessed the missile hit the apartment building. “It’s painful seeing a building destroyed right before your eyes,” Ms. Khytryk said.

For now, this community lives underground, in a parking garage. Despite the brutal, concrete surroundings, the garage has taken on the look of a neighborhood street, with children riding bikes and scooters and playing while their parents watch, wondering what tomorrow will bring.

Valerie Hopkins
Feb. 26, 2022, 5:57 p.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

An earlier live item in this briefing, citing a Ukrainian news outlet, erroneously reported that a children’s hospital in Kyiv had been struck by Russian artillery. Gunfire was reported near the hospital; a mortar did not strike it.

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Christopher F. Schuetze
Feb. 26, 2022, 5:30 p.m. ET

Reporting from Berlin

The German traffic ministry is preparing to close German airspace to Russian planes, a ministry spokeswoman confirmed on Saturday night. Several other E.U. countries have already announced airspace closures.

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Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
Matina Stevis-Gridneff
Feb. 26, 2022, 5:15 p.m. ET

Reporting from Brussels

A top European Union official, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a statement that she would propose removing a number of Russian banks from the SWIFT global payments system, freezing Russian Central Bank transactions and prohibiting the bank from liquidating assets. The European Commission said the E.U., the U.S. and Canada would create a “transatlantic task force” to identify oligarchs’ and their families’ assets and make sure they can’t access them.

The New York Times
Feb. 26, 2022, 5:15 p.m. ET

Photographers capture the destructive toll of another day of attacks in Ukraine.

Credit...Photos by Lynsey Addario, Sergey Ponomarev and Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times

For weeks, a Russian invasion had been expected by some Ukrainians and merely sequestered in the mind’s recesses by others. But once the sweeping attacks began on Thursday, hitting seemingly every corner of the country, the war became unavoidably tangible for Ukrainians — a hovering cloud of darkness that once seemed unimaginable in the post-Cold War era. These images are a visual documentation of a populace coping with the initial stages of a national military invasion, struggling with newfound uncertainty and fear.

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Feb. 26, 2022, 5:08 p.m. ET

The U.S. and Europe will bar some Russian banks from SWIFT.

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A currency exchange shop in Moscow. The announcement was a remarkable change of direction for European powers that, until recent days, were reluctant to end a 30-year effort to integrate Russia into the European economy.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration and key allies announced on Saturday that they would remove some Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system, essentially barring them from international transactions. They also said they would impose new restrictions on Russia’s central bank to prevent it from using its large international reserves to undermine sanctions.

The actions, agreed to by the European Commission, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United States, represented a significant escalation in the effort to impose severe economic costs on Russia over President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

“Russia’s war represents an assault on fundamental international rules and norms that have prevailed since the Second World War, which we are committed to defending,” the countries said in a joint statement. “We will hold Russia to account and collectively ensure that this war is a strategic failure for Putin.”

The announcement was a remarkable change of direction for European powers that, until recent days, were reluctant to end a 30-year effort to integrate Russia into the European economy. Now, like the Biden administration, European nations appear to be headed toward a policy of containment.

But, out of a sense of political self-preservation, they stopped short of barring energy transactions with Russia. The result is that Germany, Italy and other European nations will continue purchasing and paying for natural gas that flows through pipelines from Russia — through Ukrainian territory that is suddenly a war zone.

Some in Europe, along with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, had called for all Russian institutions and individuals to be cut off from SWIFT in an effort to bring the Russian economy to its knees. About 40 percent of the Russian government’s budget comes from energy sales.

While the announcement on Saturday was limited in its scope, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said that “cutting banks off will stop them from conducting most of their financial transactions worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports.”

Ms. von der Leyen said the trans-Atlantic coalition would also try to cripple Russia’s central bank by freezing its transactions and making it “impossible for the central bank to liquidate assets.”

The targeting of the central bank could, in the end, prove more consequential than the action regarding SWIFT. Russia has spent the last several years bolstering its defenses against sanctions, amassing more than $630 billion in foreign currency reserves by diverting its oil and gas revenue. Those reserves can be used to prop up the ruble, whose value has fallen dramatically amid the latest rounds of sanctions.

Biden administration officials said on Saturday that there would be new restrictions by the United States and its allies against selling rubles to Russia, undercutting the country’s ability to support its currency in the face of new sanctions on its financial sector. That, in turn, could cause inflation — and while administration officials did not say so explicitly, they are clearly hoping that could fuel protests against Mr. Putin’s rule in Russia.

“We know that Russia has been taking steps since 2014 to sanctions-proof its economy, in part through the stockpiling of foreign exchange reserves,” said Emily Kilcrease, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “The central bank sanctions will limit their ability to leverage this asset, along with constraining their ability to conduct monetary policy of any sort to manage the economic damage from other sanctions.”

The United States and its allies also announced steps to put pressure on Russia’s elites, including creating a task force that the White House said would “identify, hunt down and freeze the assets of sanctioned Russian companies and oligarchs — their yachts, their mansions and any other ill-gotten gains that we can find and freeze under the law.”

The idea is to strike those who are closest to Mr. Putin and undermine their ability to live in both Russia and the West. In another new move, the United States and its allies said they would seek to limit the sale of so-called golden passports that allow wealthy Russians who are connected to the Russian government to become citizens of Western nations and gain access to their financial systems.

While the steps are some of the harshest taken yet, the announcement falls short of a blanket cutoff of Russia from SWIFT, which some officials see as a nuclear option of sorts. Such a move would have essentially severed Russia from much of the global financial system.

And some experts say that it may only drive Russia to expand the alternative to the SWIFT system that it created several years ago when it began trying to “sanction-proof” its economy. But Russia’s equivalent system is primarily domestic; making it a competitor to SWIFT, officials say, would require teaming up with China.

The moves on Saturday came on the same day that Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, announced that his government was approving a transfer of antitank weapons to the Ukrainian military, ending his insistence on providing only nonlethal aid, such as helmets.

At the same time, in a post on Twitter, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, and its economy minister, Robert Habeck, acknowledged that the country was moving from opposing a SWIFT ban to favoring a narrowly targeted one.

“We are working intensively on how to limit the collateral damage of a disconnection from #SWIFT so that it hits the right people,” they said. “What we need is a targeted and functional restriction of SWIFT.”

The announcement by the United States and its allies did not specify which banks would be cut off from the system.

SWIFT, a Belgian messaging service formally known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, connects more than 11,000 financial institutions around the world. It does not hold or transfer funds, but it lets banks and financial institutions alert one another of transactions about to take place.

For weeks, the Biden administration publicly played down the notion of cutting Russia off from the system, suggesting that while all options were on the table, such a move could create more problems than it would solve.

But behind the scenes, American officials were pressing European allies to give some kind of indication to Mr. Putin that Europe was moving toward greater economic isolation of his country.

Moreover, because SWIFT is a European organization, the United States has been allowing European countries to take the lead on the issue. The only unilateral lever that the United States could use would be to impose sanctions, or threaten them, on the SWIFT organization itself if it continued to transmit messages for Russian institutions.

Some experts on sanctions have argued that barring Russian financial institutions from SWIFT is overblown as a tool for punishing Russia, saying that strict sanctions on the country’s banks will have the same effect.

But others have argued that blocking Russian institutions from the system would deal a blow to the country’s financial sector and that barring only a handful of banks does not go far enough.

“A targeted cutoff would not achieve what is needed,” said Marshall S. Billingslea, who was the assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing in the Trump administration. “They’ll simply reorganize the banking sector to put somebody else forward. The much more straightforward approach is to simply detach SWIFT from all of the Russian financial institutions.”

David E. Sanger and Alan Rappeport reported from Washington, and Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels. Christopher F. Schuetze contributed reporting from Berlin.

Constant Méheut
Feb. 26, 2022, 5:07 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

President Emmanuel Macron of France talked by phone with Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, which Macron criticized as “Russia’s vassal and de facto accomplice in the war against Ukraine,” a statement from his office said. Macron demanded “the withdrawal of Russian troops from Belarusian soil as quickly as possible” and denounced “the seriousness of a decision which would authorize Russia to deploy nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil.”

Niki Kitsantonis
Feb. 26, 2022, 4:52 p.m. ET

Ten civilians “of Greek origin” were killed by Russian airstrikes near the city of Mariupol, on Ukraine’s southeastern coast, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece said on Twitter. “Stop the bombing now!” he wrote. Earlier Saturday, Greece’s Foreign Ministry summoned Russia’s ambassador in Athens.

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Matthew Mpoke Bigg
Feb. 26, 2022, 4:45 p.m. ET

Zelensky tries to rally ‘antiwar coalition’ in talks with world leaders.

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CreditCredit...Ukrainian Presidential Press Service, via EPA - Shutterstock

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in new remarks on Saturday that he had spoken with the leaders of Britain, Poland, Turkey and several other nations as he sought to rally an “antiwar coalition” against Russia.

Mr. Zelensky, who has given a series of impromptu speeches broadcast on social media since the invasion began on Thursday, said on Twitter that he had spoken with Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain about “new decisions to enhance the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian army.” He also said he discussed “concrete assistance” with the leaders of Georgia, the Czech Republic and Poland.

In a speech, Mr. Zelensky briefly described his talks with Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. He said that he and Mr. Erdogan had discussed the importance of barring Russian warships from entering the Black Sea, on Ukraine’s southern coast.

Mr. Zelensky has for days called on Western nations to impose punishing sanctions on Russia and to send support to Ukraine’s forces. The United States and the European Union announced new sanctions on Russian elites, exports and financial institutions, and on Saturday the German government said it would send anti-tank weapons and surface-to-air missiles.

In his remarks, Mr. Zelensky continued to praise Ukraine’s resistance to Russian forces around the country.

“The world has seen Ukrainians are powerful, Ukrainians are brave,” he said. “We will fight as long as it takes to liberate the country.”

Mr. Zelensky has remained in Ukraine as Russian forces fight to take the capital. The U.S. State Department said in a statement that American officials were aware of his location and in contact with him, and that they would “continue to provide support to him and the democratically elected government of Ukraine.”

The New York Times
Feb. 26, 2022, 4:15 p.m. ET

Civilian volunteers brace for fighting in Ukraine.

Credit...Lynsey Addario and Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Since Russian forces began to invade Ukraine from the north, east and south on Thursday, the Ukrainian military, outmanned and outgunned, has waged ferocious, close-range battles to maintain control of the capital, Kyiv, and other cities around the country.

A day after Ukrainian soldiers sought to forestall an attack on the capital by blowing up a bridge and setting up armed checkpoints, bursts of gunfire and explosions could be heard across Kyiv, including in its heart, Maidan square, where Ukrainian protests led to the toppling of a pro-Moscow government in 2014.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has called for volunteers to take up arms to support the military, and scores of residents, many with little or no military training, have stood in line to pick up assault rifles, handed out by the government at a distribution center.

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