Ukrainian forces are pushing back against the larger and more powerful Russian military as it closes in on the capital of Kyiv. The U.S. and EU rushed ammunition and weapons to Kyiv and announced new financial sanctions aimed at further isolating Moscow.Here’s the latest on the Ukraine-Russia conflict: Ukraine still has control of its capital city, Kyiv, despite Russian troops pressing hard in the surrounding areas.Two large explosions were reported about 18 miles south of Kyiv early Sunday morning. The United Nations says it has confirmed at least 64 civilians have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine.The U.S., European Union, and United Kingdom have agreed to block “selected” Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial messaging system.Over 200,000 Ukrainians have fled into neighboring countries seeking refuge. All times referenced below are in Eastern Standard Time: 5:22 a.m.Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has temporarily lost his most senior official position in world sports.The International Judo Federation on Sunday cited “the ongoing war conflict in Ukraine” for suspending Putin’s honorary president status.The Russian president is a keen judoka and attended the sport at the 2012 London Olympics.The judo federation is rare among Olympic sports bodies for using the word “war” to describe Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ordered by Putin since Thursday. Others have used phrases such as “escalation of conflict.”A Kremlin-supporting oligarch and longtime friend of Putin, Arkady Rotenberg, remains on the IJF executive committee as development manager.5:16 a.m.Israel’s prime minister says the country is sending 100 tons of humanitarian aid to assist civilians caught up in the fighting in Ukraine.Naftali Bennett told a meeting of his Cabinet Sunday that the aid includes medical equipment and medicine, tents, sleeping bags and blankets.Bennett did not comment on a report by Israeli public broadcaster Kan which said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked the Israeli leader to mediate talks on ending the crisis with Russia. Bennett’s office confirmed there had been a call but declined to comment on the report. The Ukrainian embassy could not immediately be reached for comment.Bennett has treaded carefully in his public comments on Russia’s invasion. He has voiced support for Ukrainian civilians but has stopped short of condemning Russia. Israeli relies on Russia for security coordination in Syria, where Russia has a military presence and where Israel frequently strikes hostile targets.5:08 a.m.Ukraine’s president says Russia should be thrown out of the United Nations Security Council following its invasion of his country.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video message Sunday that the Russian invasion of Ukraine amounts to an act of genocide, saying that “Russia has taken the path of evil and the world should come to depriving it of its U.N. Security Council seat.”Russia is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, giving it veto power over resolutions.Zelenskyy said that Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities should be investigated by an international war crimes tribunal and denounced the Russian invasion as “state terrorism.”He dismissed as lies Russia’s claims that it wasn’t targeting civilian areas.4:43 a.m.The United Nations’ refugee agency says the latest count of Ukrainians arriving in neighboring countries now exceeds 200,000.The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said on Twitter that the numbers of those fleeing invading Russian troops are constantly changing and another update would be issued later Sunday.The agency’s estimate on Saturday was that at least 150,000 have fled Ukraine into Poland and other countries including Hungary and Romania.Poland’s government said Saturday that more than 100,000 Ukrainians had crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border in the past 48 hours alone.4:27 a.m.Ukraine’s president says his country is ready for peace talks with Russia but not in Belarus, which was a staging ground for Moscow’s 3-day-old invasion.Speaking in a video message Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Warsaw, Bratislava, Istanbul, Budapest or Baku as alternative venues. He said other locations are also possible but made clear that Ukraine doesn’t accept Russia’s selection of Belarus.The Kremlin said Sunday that a Russian delegation had arrived in the Belarusian city of Homel for talks with Ukrainian officials. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the delegation includes military officials and diplomats.“The Russian delegation is ready for talks, and we are now waiting for the Ukrainians,” Peskov said.Russia invaded Ukraine on Thursday, with troops moving from Moscow’s ally Belarus in the north, and also from the east and south. 3:41 a.m.Street fighting broke out in Ukraine’s second-largest city Sunday and Russian troops put increasing pressure on strategic ports in the country’s south following a wave of attacks on airfields and fuel facilities elsewhere that appeared to mark a new phase of Russia’s invasion.Until Sunday, Russia’s troops had remained on the outskirts of Kharkiv, a city of 1.4 million about 12.4 miles south of the border with Russia, while other forces rolled past to press the offensive deeper into Ukraine. 2:47 a.m.Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine is now entering its fourth day. But despite being far better equipped, Russia has failed to take control of key cities, as ordinary Ukrainians and reservists join efforts to defend their homes and families.On Saturday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Russia’s offensive was failing and it was now deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure, including kindergartens, residential blocks and “buses with children” — actions he labeled as “war crimes.””For these crimes, the Russian command will surely see military tribunal,” Shmyhal said at a press conference Saturday. “The enemy will surely be punished for killing Ukrainian children,” Shmyhal said. “The Russian government doesn’t understand they are not fighting only with the government, in fact they are fighting against the entire Ukrainian people.”1:53 a.m. Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, said troops in Kyiv were fighting Russian “sabotage groups.” Ukraine says some 200 Russian soldiers have been captured and thousands killed.Markarova said Ukraine was gathering evidence of shelling of residential areas, kindergartens and hospitals to submit to The Hague as possible crimes against humanity.12:40 a.m.The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is aware of requests by Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador and others to repatriate the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in action in Ukraine but has no numbers.Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya tweeted Saturday that Ukraine has appealed to the ICRC “to facilitate repatriation of thousands of bodies of Russian soldiers” killed during its invasion of Ukraine. An accompanying chart claimed 3,500 Russian troops have been killed. Kyslytsya tweeted that parents in Russia should have a chance “to bury them with dignity.” “Don’t let (Russian President Vladimir) Putin hide scale of tragedy,” he urged.Laetitia Courtois, ICRC’s permanent observer to the United Nations told The Associated Press Saturday night that the current security situation “is a primary concern and a limitation for our teams on the ground” and “we therefore cannot confirm numbers or other details.”She said “the ICRC can act as a neutral intermediary” on the return of bodies and other humanitarian issues in conflict, including clarifying the fate of missing persons, reuniting families, and advocating for the protection of detainees “within its possibilities.”11:15 p.m. Russian troops unleashed a wave of attacks on Ukraine targeting airfields and fuel facilities, including the massive fiery explosion at the Kharkiv gas pipeline, in what appeared to be the next phase of its invasion.The change of approach is likely a result of Russia’s slower-than-expected progress in capturing Kyiv, as well as the fierce opposition being provided by Ukrainian forces on the ground. 10:20 p.m.Ukraine’s health minister reported Saturday that 198 people, including three children, had been killed and more than 1,000 others wounded during Europe’s largest land war since World War II. It was unclear whether those figures included both military and civilian casualties.Russia claims its assault on Ukraine from the north, east and south is aimed only at military targets, but bridges, schools and residential neighborhoods have been hit.The curfew forcing everyone in Kyiv inside was set to last through Monday morning. The relative quiet of the capital was sporadically broken by gunfire.8:49 p.m.The Ukrainian president’s office said Russian forces blew up a gas pipeline in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city.The State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection warned that the explosion, which it said looked like a mushroom cloud, could cause an “environmental catastrophe” and advised residents to cover their windows with damp cloth or gauze and to drink plenty of fluids.Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova, said the Russian forces have been unable to take Kharkiv, where a fierce battle is underway.The city of 1.5 million is located 25 miles from the Russian border.7:54 p.m.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is encountering “stiffer than expected” resistance from the Ukrainian military as well as unexpected difficulties supplying its forces, two senior U.S. officials with direct knowledge tell CNN.”Ukrainian air defenses, including aircraft, do continue to be operable and continue to engage and deny access to Russian aircraft in places over the country,” the official said.Officials caution that this picture of the battlefield is just a moment in time, and the situation on the ground could change very quickly as Russian forces keep up their assault.7:49 p.m.The United Nations says it has confirmed at least 64 civilians have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine that erupted since Russia’s invasion on Thursday — though it believed the “real figures are considerably higher” because many reports of casualties remain to be confirmed.The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs relayed the count late Saturday from the U.N. human rights office, which has strict methodologies and verification procedures about the toll from conflict.OCHA also said damage to civilian infrastructure has deprived hundreds of thousands of people of access to electricity or water, and produced a map of “humanitarian situations” in Ukraine — mostly in northern, eastern and southern Ukraine. 6:58 p.m.French President Emmanuel Macron has asked his Belarus counterpart to demand that the country, Ukraine’s neighbor, quickly order Russian troops to leave, claiming Moscow has been given the green light to deploy nuclear arms there.In a phone conversation Saturday, Macron denounced “the gravity of a decision that would authorize Russia to deploy nuclear arms on Belarus soil,” a statement by the presidential palace said.Macron told Alexander Lukashenko that fraternity between the people of Belarus and Ukraine should lead Belarus to “refuse to be a vassal and an accomplice to Russia in the war against Ukraine,” the statement said.Belarus was one one of several axes used by Russia to launch attacks on Ukraine, with Belarus the point to move toward the capital Kyiv, a senior U.S. defense official has said.Macron has pushed persistently to try to claw out a ceasefire amid the war, using the telephone to talk to all sides, diplomacy and sanctions by the European Union. 6:14 p.m.Two large explosions lit up the night sky south the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early Sunday morning.The explosions appear to have been around Vasylkil, which has a large military airfield and multiple fuel tanks and is about about 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) south of the capitol city. A CNN reporter in Kyiv described hearing a large blast and then seeing a “pulsing glow” in the sky for several minutes. 6:06 p.m.YouTube said Saturday that it will temporarily halt the ability of a number of Russian channels, including state-sponsored RT, to monetize their content on the platform.It will also be “significantly limiting” recommendations to those channels, YouTube said in a statement. Earlier Saturday, Ukraine Digital Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Twitter he contacted YouTube asking the platform to block “the propagandist Russian channels,” and specifically mentioned Russia 24, TASS and RIA Novosti. 5:47 p.m.Russia is closing its airspace to planes from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia, a move that comes as Moscow’s ties with the West plunge to new lows over its invasion of Ukraine.Russia’s state aviation agency, Rosaviatsiya, announced early Sunday that the measure was taken in retaliation for the four nations closing their airspace for Russian planes.On Saturday, the agency also reported closing the Russian airspace for planes from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic in response to them doing the same. 5:26 p.m. The U.S., European Union, and United Kingdom on Saturday agreed to block “selected” Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial messaging system and to impose ”restrictive measures” on its central bank in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine.The measures were announced jointly as part of a new round of financial sanctions meant to impose a severe cost on Russia for the invasion.EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she would push the bloc also to “paralyze the assets of Russia’s Central bank” so that its transactions would be frozen.Cutting several commercial banks from SWIFT “will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally,” she said.As a third measure, she said the EU would “commit to taking measures to limit the sale of citizenship—so called golden passports—that let wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government become citizens of our countries and gain access to our financial systems.”
Ukrainian forces are pushing back against the larger and more powerful Russian military as it closes in on the capital of Kyiv.
The U.S. and EU rushed ammunition and weapons to Kyiv and announced new financial sanctions aimed at further isolating Moscow.
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Here’s the latest on the Ukraine-Russia conflict:
- Ukraine still has control of its capital city, Kyiv, despite Russian troops pressing hard in the surrounding areas.
- Two large explosions were reported about 18 miles south of Kyiv early Sunday morning.
- The United Nations says it has confirmed at least 64 civilians have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine.
- The U.S., European Union, and United Kingdom have agreed to block “selected” Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial messaging system.
- Over 200,000 Ukrainians have fled into neighboring countries seeking refuge.
All times referenced below are in Eastern Standard Time:
5:22 a.m.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has temporarily lost his most senior official position in world sports.
The International Judo Federation on Sunday cited “the ongoing war conflict in Ukraine” for suspending Putin’s honorary president status.
The Russian president is a keen judoka and attended the sport at the 2012 London Olympics.
The judo federation is rare among Olympic sports bodies for using the word “war” to describe Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ordered by Putin since Thursday. Others have used phrases such as “escalation of conflict.”
A Kremlin-supporting oligarch and longtime friend of Putin, Arkady Rotenberg, remains on the IJF executive committee as development manager.
5:16 a.m.
Israel’s prime minister says the country is sending 100 tons of humanitarian aid to assist civilians caught up in the fighting in Ukraine.
Naftali Bennett told a meeting of his Cabinet Sunday that the aid includes medical equipment and medicine, tents, sleeping bags and blankets.
Bennett did not comment on a report by Israeli public broadcaster Kan which said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked the Israeli leader to mediate talks on ending the crisis with Russia. Bennett’s office confirmed there had been a call but declined to comment on the report. The Ukrainian embassy could not immediately be reached for comment.
Bennett has treaded carefully in his public comments on Russia’s invasion. He has voiced support for Ukrainian civilians but has stopped short of condemning Russia. Israeli relies on Russia for security coordination in Syria, where Russia has a military presence and where Israel frequently strikes hostile targets.
5:08 a.m.
Ukraine’s president says Russia should be thrown out of the United Nations Security Council following its invasion of his country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video message Sunday that the Russian invasion of Ukraine amounts to an act of genocide, saying that “Russia has taken the path of evil and the world should come to depriving it of its U.N. Security Council seat.”
Russia is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, giving it veto power over resolutions.
Zelenskyy said that Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities should be investigated by an international war crimes tribunal and denounced the Russian invasion as “state terrorism.”
He dismissed as lies Russia’s claims that it wasn’t targeting civilian areas.
4:43 a.m.
The United Nations’ refugee agency says the latest count of Ukrainians arriving in neighboring countries now exceeds 200,000.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said on Twitter that the numbers of those fleeing invading Russian troops are constantly changing and another update would be issued later Sunday.
The agency’s estimate on Saturday was that at least 150,000 have fled Ukraine into Poland and other countries including Hungary and Romania.
Poland’s government said Saturday that more than 100,000 Ukrainians had crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border in the past 48 hours alone.
4:27 a.m.
Ukraine’s president says his country is ready for peace talks with Russia but not in Belarus, which was a staging ground for Moscow’s 3-day-old invasion.
Speaking in a video message Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Warsaw, Bratislava, Istanbul, Budapest or Baku as alternative venues. He said other locations are also possible but made clear that Ukraine doesn’t accept Russia’s selection of Belarus.
The Kremlin said Sunday that a Russian delegation had arrived in the Belarusian city of Homel for talks with Ukrainian officials. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the delegation includes military officials and diplomats.
“The Russian delegation is ready for talks, and we are now waiting for the Ukrainians,” Peskov said.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Thursday, with troops moving from Moscow’s ally Belarus in the north, and also from the east and south.
3:41 a.m.
Street fighting broke out in Ukraine’s second-largest city Sunday and Russian troops put increasing pressure on strategic ports in the country’s south following a wave of attacks on airfields and fuel facilities elsewhere that appeared to mark a new phase of Russia’s invasion.
Until Sunday, Russia’s troops had remained on the outskirts of Kharkiv, a city of 1.4 million about 12.4 miles south of the border with Russia, while other forces rolled past to press the offensive deeper into Ukraine.
2:47 a.m.
Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine is now entering its fourth day. But despite being far better equipped, Russia has failed to take control of key cities, as ordinary Ukrainians and reservists join efforts to defend their homes and families.
On Saturday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Russia’s offensive was failing and it was now deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure, including kindergartens, residential blocks and “buses with children” — actions he labeled as “war crimes.”
“For these crimes, the Russian command will surely see military tribunal,” Shmyhal said at a press conference Saturday. “The enemy will surely be punished for killing Ukrainian children,” Shmyhal said. “The Russian government doesn’t understand they are not fighting only with the government, in fact they are fighting against the entire Ukrainian people.”
1:53 a.m.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, said troops in Kyiv were fighting Russian “sabotage groups.” Ukraine says some 200 Russian soldiers have been captured and thousands killed.
Markarova said Ukraine was gathering evidence of shelling of residential areas, kindergartens and hospitals to submit to The Hague as possible crimes against humanity.
12:40 a.m.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is aware of requests by Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador and others to repatriate the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in action in Ukraine but has no numbers.
Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya tweeted Saturday that Ukraine has appealed to the ICRC “to facilitate repatriation of thousands of bodies of Russian soldiers” killed during its invasion of Ukraine. An accompanying chart claimed 3,500 Russian troops have been killed.
Kyslytsya tweeted that parents in Russia should have a chance “to bury them with dignity.” “Don’t let (Russian President Vladimir) Putin hide scale of tragedy,” he urged.
Laetitia Courtois, ICRC’s permanent observer to the United Nations told The Associated Press Saturday night that the current security situation “is a primary concern and a limitation for our teams on the ground” and “we therefore cannot confirm numbers or other details.”
She said “the ICRC can act as a neutral intermediary” on the return of bodies and other humanitarian issues in conflict, including clarifying the fate of missing persons, reuniting families, and advocating for the protection of detainees “within its possibilities.”
11:15 p.m.
Russian troops unleashed a wave of attacks on Ukraine targeting airfields and fuel facilities, including the massive fiery explosion at the Kharkiv gas pipeline, in what appeared to be the next phase of its invasion.
The change of approach is likely a result of Russia’s slower-than-expected progress in capturing Kyiv, as well as the fierce opposition being provided by Ukrainian forces on the ground.
10:20 p.m.
Ukraine’s health minister reported Saturday that 198 people, including three children, had been killed and more than 1,000 others wounded during Europe’s largest land war since World War II. It was unclear whether those figures included both military and civilian casualties.
Russia claims its assault on Ukraine from the north, east and south is aimed only at military targets, but bridges, schools and residential neighborhoods have been hit.
The curfew forcing everyone in Kyiv inside was set to last through Monday morning. The relative quiet of the capital was sporadically broken by gunfire.
8:49 p.m.
The Ukrainian president’s office said Russian forces blew up a gas pipeline in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city.
The State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection warned that the explosion, which it said looked like a mushroom cloud, could cause an “environmental catastrophe” and advised residents to cover their windows with damp cloth or gauze and to drink plenty of fluids.
Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova, said the Russian forces have been unable to take Kharkiv, where a fierce battle is underway.
The city of 1.5 million is located 25 miles from the Russian border.
7:54 p.m.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is encountering “stiffer than expected” resistance from the Ukrainian military as well as unexpected difficulties supplying its forces, two senior U.S. officials with direct knowledge tell CNN.
“Ukrainian air defenses, including aircraft, do continue to be operable and continue to engage and deny access to Russian aircraft in places over the country,” the official said.
Officials caution that this picture of the battlefield is just a moment in time, and the situation on the ground could change very quickly as Russian forces keep up their assault.
7:49 p.m.
The United Nations says it has confirmed at least 64 civilians have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine that erupted since Russia’s invasion on Thursday — though it believed the “real figures are considerably higher” because many reports of casualties remain to be confirmed.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs relayed the count late Saturday from the U.N. human rights office, which has strict methodologies and verification procedures about the toll from conflict.
OCHA also said damage to civilian infrastructure has deprived hundreds of thousands of people of access to electricity or water, and produced a map of “humanitarian situations” in Ukraine — mostly in northern, eastern and southern Ukraine.
6:58 p.m.
French President Emmanuel Macron has asked his Belarus counterpart to demand that the country, Ukraine’s neighbor, quickly order Russian troops to leave, claiming Moscow has been given the green light to deploy nuclear arms there.
In a phone conversation Saturday, Macron denounced “the gravity of a decision that would authorize Russia to deploy nuclear arms on Belarus soil,” a statement by the presidential palace said.
Macron told Alexander Lukashenko that fraternity between the people of Belarus and Ukraine should lead Belarus to “refuse to be a vassal and an accomplice to Russia in the war against Ukraine,” the statement said.
Belarus was one one of several axes used by Russia to launch attacks on Ukraine, with Belarus the point to move toward the capital Kyiv, a senior U.S. defense official has said.
Macron has pushed persistently to try to claw out a ceasefire amid the war, using the telephone to talk to all sides, diplomacy and sanctions by the European Union.
6:14 p.m.
Two large explosions lit up the night sky south the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early Sunday morning.
The explosions appear to have been around Vasylkil, which has a large military airfield and multiple fuel tanks and is about about 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) south of the capitol city.
A CNN reporter in Kyiv described hearing a large blast and then seeing a “pulsing glow” in the sky for several minutes.
6:06 p.m.
YouTube said Saturday that it will temporarily halt the ability of a number of Russian channels, including state-sponsored RT, to monetize their content on the platform.
It will also be “significantly limiting” recommendations to those channels, YouTube said in a statement.
Earlier Saturday, Ukraine Digital Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Twitter he contacted YouTube asking the platform to block “the propagandist Russian channels,” and specifically mentioned Russia 24, TASS and RIA Novosti.
5:47 p.m.
Russia is closing its airspace to planes from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia, a move that comes as Moscow’s ties with the West plunge to new lows over its invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s state aviation agency, Rosaviatsiya, announced early Sunday that the measure was taken in retaliation for the four nations closing their airspace for Russian planes.
On Saturday, the agency also reported closing the Russian airspace for planes from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic in response to them doing the same.
5:26 p.m.
The U.S., European Union, and United Kingdom on Saturday agreed to block “selected” Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial messaging system and to impose ”restrictive measures” on its central bank in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine.
The measures were announced jointly as part of a new round of financial sanctions meant to impose a severe cost on Russia for the invasion.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she would push the bloc also to “paralyze the assets of Russia’s Central bank” so that its transactions would be frozen.
Cutting several commercial banks from SWIFT “will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally,” she said.
As a third measure, she said the EU would “commit to taking measures to limit the sale of citizenship—so called golden passports—that let wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government become citizens of our countries and gain access to our financial systems.”
