Live blog: War in Ukraine
Russia bombards Ukrainian cities, as Zelenskyy pleads with Moscow to ‘stop the bombing’ and West ramps up sanctions.
It’s been almost a week since Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to wage war against Ukraine, and Russia’s 40-mile armored convoy reportedly continues its progress toward the capital Kyiv as other Ukrainian cities faced massive bombing overnight.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked Russia to “just stop the bombing” in an interview with Western media on Tuesday, just as a Russian missile hit a TV tower in Kyiv, killing five people. Zelenskyy the same day gave an emotional video address to the European Parliament, which backed an accession path to the European Union for Ukraine in a symbolic, non-binding vote.
Putin’s government is scrambling to stymie the dire effect of Western sanctions as Russia keeps going down its path of economic isolation. Global finance, consumer goods giants, as well as the world of sports and entertainment are all turning their backs on the country. Russian-state outlets RT and Sputnik are banned from EU airwaves and social media. The bloc now turns its eyes to Moscow ally Belarus for a potential new set of sanctions.
Follow POLITICO’s live blog coverage below for the latest developments and analysis.
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MARCH 2, 202210:58 AM
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Giorgio Leali
MACRON TO ADDRESS THE NATION ON UKRAINIAN CRISIS TONIGHT
French President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation at 8 p.m. with a speech on the war in Ukraine.
MARCH 2, 202210:56 AM
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Victor Jack
FORMER RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER URGES DIPLOMATS TO RESIGN
Former Russian foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev on Tuesday called on all Russian diplomats to resign in protest of the war. “You are professionals and not cheap propagandists,” the former cabinet member under Boris Yeltsin wrote on Twitter. “When I worked in the foreign ministry, I was proud of my colleagues. Now you simply cannot support the bloody fratricidal war in Ukraine.”
MARCH 2, 202210:55 AM
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Lily Hyde
DESOLATION AND RAGE IN KYIV
As sirens rang out in Kyiv this morning, a UN convoy and some of the last diplomatic missions, including Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, left the city.
One embassy employee estimated that there are only one or two embassies left from what was a large diplomatic community representing more than 70 countries. The roads are empty compared to the mass exodus of the last few days.
In the historic district of Podil, sandbags are stacked on corners outside hipster cafes, some of which are now providing meals and supplies for hospitals and children’s homes, or for the territorial defence units patrolling the streets.
Driving south out of the city, there are small columns of military trucks and hardware, including a tank, heading the other way, as well as some civilian traffic, overwhelmingly carrying men. Concrete blocks, “Czech hedgehogs,” made of lengths of railway track, or tires and piled earth form regular road blocks.
Most are manned by civilian volunteer forces wearing a ragbag of uniforms or personal clothes, some armed with hunting rifles and with boxes of ready-prepared Molotov cocktails — or Bandera smoothies, as Ukrainians have renamed them after the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera who led an insurgency against the Soviet Union in the mid 20th century.
Electronic road signs display the weather — clouds and sleet, barely above zero degree celsius — and a short message: “Russians, fuck yourself.”
MARCH 2, 202210:44 AM
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Laurenz Gehrke
'WE MUST FILL PRISONS WITH OURSELVES,' KREMLIN CRITIC NAVALNY SAYS
Alexei Navalny, the jailed outspoken Kremlin critic, called on Russians at home and abroad to regularly organize protests against the war in Ukraine.
“I cannot, do not want and will not remain silent watching how pseudo-historical nonsense about the events of 100 years ago has become an excuse for Russians to kill Ukrainians, and for Ukrainians to kill Russians while defending themselves,” Navalny, currently on trial in Russia over his anti-government stance, said on Twitter today.
He also drew attention to the thousands of Russians who were imprisoned in recent days only because they protested against the war, adding that imprisonment would be a price worth paying in the fight against the war. “If in order to stop the war we have to fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves, we will fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves,” he said.
MARCH 2, 202210:23 AM
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Douglas Busvine
ZELENSKYY: RUSSIANS WANT TO ERASE UKRAINE AND ITS HISTORY
Russia’s invasion has the ultimate goal of erasing the Ukrainian nation and its history, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday, expressing horror at the bombing of Kharkiv, Kyiv and other cities.
Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, singled out a missile strike on Kyiv’s TV tower on Tuesday that killed five and caused damage to the Holocaust memorial site of Babyn Yar.
“You are killing victims of the Holocaust all over again,” Zelenskyy said in an eight-minute video address. “This missile strike shows that, for many people in Russia, our Kyiv is completely alien. They don’t know anything about our capital. About our history. But they have orders to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all.”
Commenting on a cruise missile strike Tuesday on the regional government headquarters in Kharkiv, on the city’s Freedom Square, he said: “Yesterday morning on Freedom Square we were all Kharkiv residents.”
Seven days of war had created greater unity among Ukrainians than 30 years of independence, he said. “In this time, we have become one.”
MARCH 2, 20229:30 AM
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Johanna Treeck
IMF AND WORLD BANK ANNOUNCE SUPPORT FOR UKRAINE
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank in a joint statement said they are readying support for Ukraine.
The World Bank is preparing a $3 billion package of support in the coming months, starting with a fast-disbursing budget support operation for at least $350 million that will be submitted to the Board for approval this week, the statement reads.
Meanwhile, under Ukraine’s stand-by arrangement program, the IMF will make an additional $2.2 billion available between now and the end of June. It is also working on a Ukrainian request for emergency financing through the Rapid Financing Instrument.
The statement, issued overnight, conspicuously fails to mention Russia at any point.
The international bodies warn that the war is creating significant spillovers to other countries. “Commodity prices are being driven higher and risk further fueling inflation, which hits the poor the hardest. Disruptions in financial markets will continue to worsen should the conflict persist. The sanctions announced over the last few days will also have a significant economic impact,” the joint statement said.
MARCH 2, 20229:00 AM
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Johanna Treeck
EURO FALLS
The euro fell to its lowest level against the U.S. dollar since May 2020 amid fears Russia’s war on Ukraine will hit the region’s economy particularly hard. The eurozone is not only a close neighbor but also heavily reliant on Russian gas supplies. The euro traded at around 1.1092 against the dollar, compared to 1.1325 before the war started on Wednesday, February 22.
MARCH 2, 20228:52 AM
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Douglas Busvine
ROCKET STRIKE HITS CENTRAL KHARKIV AFTER OVERNIGHT SHELLING
A Russian rocket struck a university building in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning, after a night of heavy fighting.
The rocket hit the economics faculty of the city’s university, which is across the road from police headquarters, according to eyewitness video that showed the upper stories of the building gutted and on fire.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, lies close to the Russian border and has come under heavy and sustained bombardment, with civilian areas targeted. A cruise missile has struck the regional administrative headquarters. There was massive shelling of residential areas overnight and reports of a huge blast at a military academy.
Regional administrative chief Oleg Sinegubov said in a Facebook post that 21 people had been killed at 112 injured in Kharkiv over the last 24 hours.
MARCH 2, 20228:43 AM
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Clothilde Goujard
TWITTER TO BAN RT, SPUTNIK AFTER EU SANCTIONS COME INTO FORCE
Twitter will take down the accounts of Kremlin-backed news outlets RT and Sputnik after the EU sanctions come into force, the social network said on Wednesday.
“The European Union (EU) sanctions will likely legally require us to withhold certain content in EU member states,” a spokesperson told POLITICO. “We intend to comply with the order when it goes into effect.”
RT, formerly known as Russia Today, and Sputnik are today set to be taken off the air and offline in the EU, amid an escalating information war, as Moscow intensifies its crackdown on foreign platforms and local media.
The sanction will be published in the Official Journal this morning, effectively giving legal grounds for European national media regulators to go after the Russian state-controlled outlets.
Pressures from European politicians on social media companies have been growing over the last few days.
On Tuesday, French Digital Secretary of State Cédric O slammed Twitter for not taking stronger action against the Russian outlets: “Twitter is always, always the last one to react, and always the one not to do enough on [content] moderation,“ he told French radio.
“We continue to advocate for a free and open internet, particularly in times of crisis,” said a Twitter spokesperson.
With Laura Kayali.
MARCH 2, 20228:13 AM
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Camille Gijs
WESTERN BRANDS CONTINUE TO SHUN RUSSIA
Several major international brands announced overnight that they would stop operating in Russia. Boeing will stop providing parts, technical support and maintenance for Russian airlines, the company said. And joining Mastercard and Visa, American Express announced it would comply with the U.S. and international sanctions, and would halt “relationships with impacted bank partners in Russia.” Nike also announced it would pull out of Russia.
Meanwhile Warner Bros blocked the release of “The Batman” in Russia, which was supposed to come out on Friday, following Disney’s lead.
U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil also announced late on Tuesday that it would wind down its operations in Russia, and would halt any new investment in the country. Exxon’s announcement follows BP, Shell and Equinor who said earlier in the week that they would divest from their own operations in Russia.
MARCH 2, 20228:11 AM
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Camille Gijs
MOSCOW STOCK EXCHANGE SUSPENDED FOR THIRD DAY IN A ROW
The Moscow Stock Exchange will not open for the third day in a row, but the Bank of Russia said in a statement it would keep a small number of operations running.”The operating hours of the Moscow Exchange on March 3, 2022 will be announced on the official website of the Bank of Russia until 09:00 Moscow time on March 3, 2022,” the statement further reads.
MARCH 2, 20225:37 AM
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Zoya Sheftalovich
RUSSIA STRIKES BABYN YAR HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL IN KYIV
Russia’s shelling of a TV tower in Kyiv, which Ukrainian authorities say killed five people, also struck the territory of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial, which commemorates the location where Nazis killed between 70,000 and 100,000 people in World War II, including nearly all of Kyiv’s Jewish population.
In a statement, Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial’s supervisory board, said: “Putin’s attempts to distort and manipulate the Holocaust in order to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign democracy are extremely disgusting. It is symbolic that he began the attack on Kyiv with a strike on the territory of Babyn Yar, where the greatest crime of the Nazis took place.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish himself and whom Russian President Vladimir Putin has falsely labeled a Nazi, said in a tweet: “To the world: what is the point of saying «never again» for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar? At least 5 killed. History repeating…”
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said: “Kyiv TV tower, which has just been hit by a Russian missile, is situated on the territory of Babyn Yar. On September 29-30, 1941, Nazis killed over 33 thousand Jews here. 80 years later, Russian Nazis strike this same land to exterminate Ukrainians. Evil and barbaric.”
MARCH 2, 20222:46 AM
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Zoya Sheftalovich
APPLE PULLS PRODUCTS FROM RUSSIA
Apple products will no longer be sold in Russia, in response to the country's invasion of Ukraine.
“We are deeply concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and stand with all of the people who are suffering as a result of the violence,” Apple said in a statement provided to the media. “We have paused all product sales in Russia. Last week, we stopped all exports into our sales channel in the country. Apple Pay and other services have been limited. RT News and Sputnik News are no longer available for download from the App Store outside Russia. And we have disabled both traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine as a safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens.”
MARCH 1, 20229:34 PM
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Emma Anderson
40-MILE RUSSIAN MILITARY CONVOY NEARS KYIV
POLITICO's Samuel Benson writes: A convoy of hundreds of Russian tanks and other vehicles, stretching 40 miles, is nearing Kyiv in an apparent attempt to seize the Ukrainian capital and install a pro-Kremlin regime, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
High-resolution satellite images captured by U.S. company Maxar Technologies show the convoy heading south toward the Ukrainian capital. On Monday, Maxar originally reported the convoy to be 17 miles in length; later, the company stated additional images revealed a stream of military vehicles 40 miles long. Read more here.
MARCH 1, 20229:08 PM
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Lili Bayer
SLOVENIAN CONSULATE DESTROYED BY RUSSIAN MISSILES
The Consulate of the Republic of Slovenia in Kharkiv was destroyed by a Russian rocket attack today,” Slovenia’s embassy to Ukraine said in a tweet this evening.
“The Honorary Consul is safe. This horrific act will not remain without consequences,” it added.
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