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PremiumUS President Joe Biden on Thursday announced "severe" economic sanctions to make President Vladimir Putin a "pariah" for invading Ukraine, but conceded there was a lack of Western unity for enacting an even tougher measure.
Biden confirmed that for now there was no attempt to put sanctions directly on Putin, who is widely reported to have amassed a huge, secret fortune during his two decades in power.
Ukraine pleaded for yanking Russia from SWIFT on Thursday, but Biden said that the Western coalition could not come to an agreement.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense says the bulk of Russian forces advancing on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv are more than 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the center of the city.
The ministry said it continues to monitor “sporadic clashes’’ between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the northern suburbs of the capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has hailed his troops for their courage as they press their offensive across Ukraine and bear down on Kyiv.
Speaking during Friday’s meeting of his Security Council, Putin claimed that most Ukrainian military units are reluctant to engage Russian forces.
He said the units offering resistance are mostly volunteer battalions made up of right-wing Ukrainian nationalists. The Russian president urged the Ukrainian military to end their resistance and turn on their leaders.
The units of the Lugansk People's Republic in the Severodonetsk direction rapidly advanced to a depth of 12 km. The grouping of troops of Donetsk People's Republic in direction of Volnovakha advanced 11 km deep into the defence of nationalist battalions: Russian Defence Ministry
Ukraine's central bank transferred around $650 million to the state budget on Friday, to be used for military purposes and to cover other state needs, Russian state TASS news agency reported.
An estimated 16,000 Indians, mostly students, are stranded in Ukraine as Russia’s invasion of the east European country entered its second day on Friday. Of the students, many studying medicine in Kharkiv and Kyiv, about 2,500 are from Gujarat and 2,320 from Kerala.
Russian missiles pounded Kyiv on Friday, families cowered in shelters and authorities told residents to prepare Molotov cocktails to defend Ukraine's capital as fighting was reported in the outskirts of the city.
More than 50,000 people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, the United Nations refugee chief said Friday.
"More than 50,000 Ukrainian refugees have fled their country in less than 48 hours - a majority to Poland and Moldova," Filippo Grandi said in a tweet, cautioning that "many more are moving towards its borders."
Russia announces 'partial restriction' of access to Facebook over platform's ban of Kremlin-backed media
The European Central Bank is ready to support price and financial stability in the eurozone if needed during the Russia-Ukraine crisis, its chief Christine Lagarde said Friday.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is expected to hit "badly" the Indian economy and the trade to a significant extent, domestic traders' body CAIT said on Friday.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said the impact will jeopardise efforts to recover the domestic trade from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Russia is facing more resistance than Moscow anticipated in its invasion of Ukraine, including in its advance on the capital, Kyiv, and appears to have lost some of its momentum, a senior U.S. defense official said on Friday.
The Kremlin said on Friday it had offered to hold talks with Ukraine in the Belarusian capital Minsk after Ukraine said it was willing to discuss declaring itself a neutral country, but said Ukraine had instead proposed Warsaw as a venue.
Ukrainian forces fought off Russian troops in the capital Kyiv on Friday on the second day of a conflict that has claimed dozens of lives, as Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the Ukrainian army to remove the country's leadership.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that reaction from NATO and Western countries to Russia's assault on Ukraine had not been decisive, adding he hoped a NATO summit on Friday would lead to a more determined approach from the alliance.
The Council of Europe said Friday that it is suspending all representatives of Russia from participation in the pan-European rights body over Moscow's attack against Ukraine.
The Kremlin Friday said prospects for possible peace talks between Russia and Ukraine look uncertain due to apparent differences over a venue.
President Joe Biden joined an emergency NATO summit Friday to strengthen the frantic Western response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and fears for the security of Europe.
The West has agreed an onslaught of sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but resistance from key EU nations fearful of severing their power sources has resulted in them holding off on deploying the "financial nuclear weapon" of banishing Moscow from the SWIFT banking transfer system.
Putin on Friday called on the Ukrainian army to overthrow the country's leadership whom he described as "terrorists" and "a gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis".
Addressing the Ukrainian military in a televised address, he urged them to "take power in your own hands."
"It seems like it will be easier for us to agree with you than this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis," he said, referring to leadership in Kyiv led by President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish.
Excluding Russia from the global SWIFT system of interbank payments should be an option given the scale of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Wopke Hoekstra said in Friday.
All through the night, as Russian forces drove deeper into Ukraine, a small group of Indian medical students in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv cowered in a dark basement under their apartment building, hearing a barrage of explosions.
The bombardment was unabated in the morning.
A bloc of 10 northern European defence allies, which includes the Baltic states, agreed on a call Friday that further sanctions were needed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, the UK said.
"The leaders agreed that more sanctions were needed, including focusing on (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin's inner circle, building on the measures that had already been agreed," a spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office said following the call.
Poland will ban Russian airlines from its airspace from midnight on Friday, the government said a day after Russia attacked Ukraine.
"I have ordered the preparation of a resolution of the council of ministers which will lead to the closure of the airspace over Poland to Russian airlines," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Facebook.
Luxembourg’s foreign minister said Friday that the 27-nation European Union was “very close to agreement" for asset freeze of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Ukrainian authorities said Friday that radiation levels had increased in the Chernobyl exclusion zone and warned the seizure of the nuclear plant by invading Russian troops could have "terrible consequences."
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered his troops to invade Ukraine and on the same day they seized the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in one of the most radioactive places on earth.
Ukrainian cybersecurity officials say a hacking campaign is targeting the private email addresses of Ukrainian military personnel "and related individuals".
France has sent an elite police unit to Kyiv to bolster the safety of its embassy in the Ukrainian capital, a security source told AFP on Friday.
The team of eight, deployed since Wednesday at the embassy, is part of the GIGN, the French gendarmerie's elite tactical police force, the source said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to send a delegation of high-ranking officials to Minsk to hold talks with Kiev, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
Ukraine's Defence Ministry says more than 1,000 Russian soldiers were killed so far in Ukraine conflict
The Russian military claims it has taken control of an airport just outside Kyiv, as Kremlin forces bear down on the Ukrainian capital.
Ukrainian forces fought off Russian troops in the streets of the capital Kyiv on Friday as President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of targeting civilians and called for more international sanctions.
The EU on Friday said Russian President Vladimir Putin was looking to destroy Ukraine and that his actions were comparable to those of the Nazis in World War II.
"He is talking about de-Nazifying Ukraine, but he behaves like Nazis. So this is all in his head," EU spokesman Peter Stano told reporters in Brussels.
People in Kyiv were told to make Molotov cocktail petrol bombs on Friday as they hid in makeshift shelters and basements, awaiting a Russian assault on the Ukrainian capital.
"Make Molotov cocktails, neutralise the occupier!," the Defence Ministry said, while local authorities told people in the northwestern Obolon area of the city to stay off the streets because "active hostilities" were approaching.
Formula One says it is “impossible" to hold a race in Russia later this year following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. F1 had scheduled a race in Sochi on September 25.
Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russian President Vladmir Putin that China supports Russia in efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis via dialogue, Chinese state television CCTV reported.
The leaders spoke by phone on Friday, it said.
Coordination among European Union leaders on another sanctions package against Russia is in the early stages, a German government spokesperson said on Friday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday urged the EU to impose tougher sanctions on Russia over its invasion, after the bloc held off hitting Moscow with the full arsenal of punitive measures.
"Not all possibilities for sanctions have been exhausted yet. The pressure on Russia must increase," Zelensky tweeted after talking to EU chief Ursula von der Leyen.
IAG, owner of British Airways and Spanish carrier Iberia, is re-routing aircraft to avoid flying over Russian airspace, its boss said Friday, amid international outcry over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow would be ready to hold talks with Kyiv, but only once Ukraine's military had laid down its arms.
He also said that Moscow did not want "neo-Nazis" to govern Ukraine.
Russia will impose retaliatory sanctions on Western nations on the basis of reciprocity, the Kremlin said on Friday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said sanctions would cause problems for Russia but they would be solvable, as it had reduced its dependence on foreign imports.
Russian forces invading Ukraine said they had taken control of a vital canal to supply water to Moscow-annexed Crimea, which has been suffering from shortages for the past eight years.
Crimea received most of its water from Ukraine's Dnieper River via the North Crimean Canal until 2014, when Moscow annexed the peninsula and Kyiv authorities blocked the waterway.
Ukraine's nuclear agency and interior ministry said on Friday they were recording increased radiation levels from the site of the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Experts at the state nuclear agency did not provide exact radiation levels but said the change was due to the movement of heavy military equipment in the area lifting radioactive dust into the air.
Virgin Atlantic said on Friday it would avoid Russian airspace, meaning flights between Britain, India and Pakistan would take slightly longer.
"We apologise for any inconvenience caused to customers by slightly longer flight times," a spokesperson said.
Loud blasts were heard in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday, a witness told Reuters, as missile strikes and air raid alerts were reported in a number of cities in Ukraine.
Russian forces approaching Kyiv from northeast and east, says Ukraine army
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