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KYIV/MOSCOW— President Vladimir Putin put Russia’s nuclear deterrent on excessive alert on Sunday within the face of a barrage of Western reprisals for his conflict on Ukraine, which mentioned it had repelled Russian floor forces attacking its greatest cities.
The USA mentioned Putin was escalating the conflict with “harmful rhetoric”, amid indicators that the most important assault on a European state since World Battle Two was not producing speedy victories, however as an alternative producing a far-reaching and concerted Western response.
Lower than 4 days after it began, the invasion has triggered a Western political, strategic, financial and company response unprecedented in its extent and coordination.
“With this conflict on Ukraine, the world won’t ever be the identical once more,” EU’s overseas coverage chief Josef Borrell wrote in an opinion piece within the Guardian newspaper.
“It’s now, greater than ever, the time for societies and alliances to return collectively to construct our future on belief, justice and freedom. It’s the second to face up and to talk out. Would possibly doesn’t make proper. By no means did. By no means will,” he mentioned.
The 27-nation European Union on Sunday determined for the primary time in its historical past to produce weapons to a rustic at conflict. A supply advised Reuters it could ship 450 million euros ($507 million) of weaponry to Ukraine. Borrell at a information convention mentioned EU’s help would come with offering fighter jets.
READ: EU ought to fund weapons and gas for ‘heroic’ Ukraine, Borrell says
The European Union’s chief govt Ursula von der Leyen expressed help for Ukraine’s membership in an interview with Euronews, saying “they’re certainly one of us.”
Ukraine, a democratic nation of 44 million individuals, received independence from Moscow in 1991 on the fall of the Soviet Union and has pushed to affix the NATO Western navy alliance and the EU, objectives Russia vehemently opposes.
The rouble plunged almost 30% to an all-time low versus the greenback early on Monday, after Western nations on Saturday unveiled harsh sanctions together with blocking some banks from the SWIFT worldwide funds system. On Sunday, the president of impartial Switzerland mentioned he anticipated his authorities to observe the EU with Russia sanctions and freezing Russian belongings.
Negotiations
The Ukrainian president’s workplace mentioned negotiations with Moscow with out preconditions can be held on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. Russian information company Tass afterward Sunday cited an unidentified supply as saying the talks would begin on Monday morning.
As missiles fell on Ukrainian cities, almost 400,000 civilians, primarily girls and youngsters, have fled into neighboring international locations, a U.N. reduction company mentioned. A whole bunch had been stranded in Kyiv on Sunday ready for trains to take them west, away from the preventing.
The capital remained in Ukrainian authorities arms, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rallying his individuals each day regardless of Russian shelling of civilian infrastructure.
The EU shut all Russian planes out of its airspace, as did Canada, forcing Russian airline Aeroflot to cancel all flights to European locations till additional discover. With flight choices dwindling, america and France urged their residents to contemplate leaving Russia instantly.
The EU additionally banned the Russian media shops RT and Sputnik.
Germany, which had already frozen a deliberate undersea gasoline pipeline from Russia, mentioned it could enhance protection spending massively, getting rid of a long time of reluctance to match its financial energy with navy clout.
British oil main BP BP.L BP, the most important overseas investor in Russia, mentioned it was abandoning its stake in state oil firm Rosneft ROSN.MM at a price of as much as $25 billion, shrinking its oil and gasoline reserves in half.
A number of European subsidiaries of Sberbank Russia, majority owned by the Russian authorities, had been failing or had been more likely to fail as a result of reputational value of the conflict in Ukraine, the European Central Financial institution, the lenders’ supervisor, mentioned.
‘Not deterrence however menace’
No less than 352 civilians, together with 14 youngsters, have been killed and 1,684 individuals have been wounded, Ukraine’s Well being Ministry mentioned.
Putin, who has known as the invasion a “particular operation”, thrust an alarming new ingredient into play when he ordered Russia’s “deterrence forces” – which wield nuclear weapons – onto excessive alert.
He has justified the invasion by saying “neo-Nazis” rule Ukraine and threaten Russia’s safety – a cost Kyiv and Western governments say is baseless propaganda.
On Sunday, he cited aggressive statements by NATO leaders and the raft of financial sanctions imposed on Russia by the West.
“Not solely do Western international locations take unfriendly measures towards our nation within the financial dimension – I imply the unlawful sanctions that everybody is aware of about very properly – but additionally the highest officers of main NATO international locations permit themselves to make aggressive statements on the subject of our nation,” he mentioned on state tv.
Putin beforehand referred to his nuclear arsenal in a speech asserting the beginning of the invasion on Thursday, saying Russia’s response to any nation that stood in its approach can be rapid and carry “penalties that you’ve got by no means encountered in your historical past”.
The EU’s Borrell mentioned Russia had clearly threatened a nuclear assault on international locations supporting Ukraine after the invasion. “We’re afraid that Russia is just not going to cease in Ukraine,” he mentioned.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, on the U.N. Safety Council, urged “Russia to tone down this harmful rhetoric relating to nuclear weapons.”
A U.S. protection official mentioned Washington was attempting to evaluate what Putin’s announcement meant, however that it elevated the hazard from any miscalculation.
Moscow acknowledged that Russian troopers had been killed and wounded, however mentioned its losses had been far decrease than these suffered by Ukraine, the Interfax information company reported. Moscow has not launched casualty figures.
In New York, the U.N. Safety Council convened a uncommon emergency assembly of the U.N. Basic Meeting, or all of the United Nations’ 193 member states, for Monday.
Rolling protests have been held world wide towards the invasion, together with in Russia, the place virtually 6,000 individuals have been detained at anti-war protests since Thursday, the OVD-Information protest monitor mentioned.
Tens of 1000’s of individuals throughout Europe marched in protest, together with greater than 100,000 in Berlin.
Battle for Kharkiv
A Ukrainian state information company mentioned that Russian troops had blown up a pure gasoline pipeline in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest metropolis, sending a burning cloud into the sky.
Quickly after, Russian armor rolled into Kharkiv, in northwest Ukraine, and witnesses reported firing and explosions. However metropolis authorities mentioned the assault had been repelled.
Reuters was unable to corroborate the knowledge.
Ukrainian forces additionally seemed to be holding off Russian troops advancing on Kyiv however the Ukrainian armed forces described Sunday as “a tough time”, saying Russian troops “proceed shelling in virtually all instructions”.
Satellite tv for pc imagery launched by the personal Maxar Applied sciences taken on Sunday confirmed a 5 km (3.25 mile) lengthy convoy of Russian floor forces together with tanks roughly 40 miles (64 km) away heading in direction of Kyiv. Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the pictures.
“Now we have withstood and are efficiently repelling enemy assaults. The preventing goes on,” Zelenskiy mentioned within the newest of a number of video messages from the streets of Kyiv.
—Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Aleksandar Vasovic in Kyiv; Natalia Zinets and Matthias Williams in Lviv; Alan Charlish in Medyka, Poland; Fedja Grulovic in Sighetu Marmatiei, Romania; and different Reuters bureaux together with Moscow; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel, Angus MacSwan, Kevin Liffey and Humeyra Pamuk; Modifying by David Clarke and Grant McCool
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