WASHINGTON -- As members of Congress waved small blue and yellow Ukrainian flags, U.S. President Joe Biden came to his first State of the Union address on the evening of March 1 with tough words for his autocratic adversaries.
With Russian President Putin ratcheting up attacks on Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv and Kyiv, Biden stood in the House chamber and told Americans the free world was united against Putin’s aggression.
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"The free world is holding him accountable," Biden said. "Along with 27 members of the European Union, including France, Germany, Italy, as well as countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Korea. Australia, New Zealand, and many others, even Switzerland are inflicting pain on Russia and supporting the people of Ukraine. Putin is now isolated from the world more than he has ever been."
He announced that he was immediately closing U.S. airspace to Russian flights.
"Six days ago, Russia's Vladimir Putin sought to shake the foundations of the free world thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways," he said of the Russian president, to what appeared to be widespread applause from the crowd of both Democrats and Republicans. "But he badly miscalculated. He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met a wall of strength he never imagined. He met the Ukrainian people."
Biden said Kyiv was on the frontline of the global battle between democracies and autocracies, and that democracy would prevail. He said Putin badly miscalculated when he launched a full-scale invasion of his neighbor.
"He thought he could divide us at home in this chamber in this nation," Biden said. "He thought he could divide us in Europe as well. But Putin was wrong. We are ready. We are united and that's what we did."
Biden said it would take time, but the United States and its NATO allies would remain united and freedom would prevail over tyranny.
As if to underscore that point, Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, joined first lady Jill Biden in her viewing box, and was greeted by a standing ovation. The White House said that the first lady had a small embroidered applique of a sunflower, Ukraine's national flower, sewn onto the wrist of her dark blue dress for the speech.
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The evolving crisis in Ukraine has become a central focus of Washington in recent weeks. U.S. and NATO allies have imposed bruising sanctions that have caused Russia's currency and stock markets to plummet, and also pledged weapons and aid for Ukraine's government.
Biden again made clear the United States would not send troops into Ukraine, but vowed that he and the other members of the NATO alliance will defend NATO territory.
"The Ukrainians are fighting back with pure courage. But the next few days weeks, months, will be hard on them," he said.
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Biden did not discuss the chaotic military departure from Afghanistan last August. But in the Republican response to Biden’s address, Governor Kim Reynolds of Iowa blasted the president for what she called his failure there.
"The disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal did more than cost American lives; it betrayed our allies and emboldened our enemies," Reynolds told VOA.
Experts said that in light of the current crisis, it makes sense that Biden devoted his foreign policy part of the speech to Ukraine, even though much there remains uncertain.
"So now it's a moment where I think Biden thus far has proved a lot of his experience and value, but it all depends on how things play out in Ukraine," said Brian Katulis of the Middle East Institute.
Another expert told VOA the strong positive, bipartisan response Biden received on his Ukraine remarks will be noticed in Moscow. "And foreign policy wise, that’s a very important signal," said Michael Kimmage of the German Marshall Fund. "Putin will be looking for any kind of division or vulnerability in American politics. I think everybody in the room, not just Biden, but everybody in the room knew this is not the moment to send that signal."
YouTube on March 11 broadened its blocking of Russian state-linked media channels to apply internationally after initially barring them only in Europe following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
The world's most-used streaming video service, which is owned by Google, said Russia's invasion of Ukraine now fell under its violent events policy and that violating material would be removed.
YouTube's guidelines "prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events, and we remove content about Russia's invasion in Ukraine that violates this policy," the video-sharing platform said.
YouTube spokesman Farshad Shadloo said the blocking of the Russian outlets was in line with that policy.
YouTube did not specify which and how many channels had been blocked globally or whether they ever would be restored.
Its policy states channels may be permanently blocked for repeated violations, a single case of severe abuse, or when they are dedicated to violating content.
The United Nations on March 11 said it was not aware of any biological weapons program in Ukraine, while Washington expressed concern that Russia was spreading the unproven claim in order to launch its own biological or chemical attacks.
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Russia had requested a Security Council meeting to address its allegations of U.S. “biological activities” in Ukraine -- a charge made without any evidence and denied by both Washington and Kyiv.
Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN high representative for disarmament affairs, told the council that the United Nations is "not aware" of any biological weapons program in Ukraine.
The Russian envoy to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, repeated the claim -- without providing evidence -- that Ukraine ran biological weapons laboratories with U.S. Defense Department support.
Under a 2005 agreement, the Pentagon has assisted several Ukrainian public health laboratories with improving the security of dangerous pathogens and technology used in research.
The U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said Washington was "deeply concerned" that Russia called the session as a "false flag effort" aimed at laying the groundwork for its own use of biological or chemical weapons in Ukraine.
"Russia has a track record of falsely accusing other countries of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
She added: "We have serious concerns that Russia may be planning to use chemical or biological agents against the Ukrainian people.”
“We believe Russia could use chemical or biological agents for assassinations, as part of a staged or false flag incident, or to support tactical military operations,” she said.
Britain’s UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, called Moscow’s allegations “utter nonsense” and said “Russia is sinking to new depths today, but the council must not get dragged down with it.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on March 11 that Russian President Vladimir Putin shows no sign of being willing to engage in diplomacy, during a visit to Romania where she praised the country for taking in thousands of people fleeing the fighting in neighboring Ukraine.
"From everything that we know and have witnessed, Putin shows no sign of engaging in serious diplomacy," Harris said at a news conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.
“Romania has been extraordinary in the generosity and the courage that you have shown," Harris said.
She added that Washington was aware of the "particular challenges" faced by the Eastern European country geographically.
Asked if Washington intends to increase the number of troops in Romania, Harris said, "We will on a daily basis assess the needs that we have to maintain stability in this region."
Bucharest was Harris' second stop on a three-day trip through Eastern Europe.
Harris met with Polish leaders and Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw on March 10 and offered U.S. support to calls for an international war-crimes investigation against Russia.
Her visit to Poland came amid controversy over a Polish plan to supply fighter jets to Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been asking the West for access to Soviet-era MiG-29 jets, some of which remained in former Warsaw Pact countries after they joined NATO.
Washington, however, has rejected the Polish plan outright.
The White House says it is imposing "new economic actions" against Russia to hold the Kremlin accountable for Moscow's continued unprovoked assault on Ukraine and further isolate Russia from the global financial system.
In announcing the measures on March 11, U.S. President Joe Biden said that in unison with the G7 group of wealthy nations, Washington will revoke Russia's "permanent normal trade relations" status, commonly referred to as most-favored nation status, to punish President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.
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"The free world is coming together to confront Putin," Biden said from the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
He also said countries were adding new names to a list of Russian oligarchs who are facing sanctions, and the United States is cutting the flow of high-end American products such as expensive watches, cars, and clothing.
“We’re banning the export of luxury goods to Russia," he said.
Biden said there would be further retaliation if Ukraine is targeted with chemical weapons, a possibility that administration officials have warned about in recent days.
“Russia would pay a severe price if they used chemical weapons,” he said.
Biden again ruled out any direct intervention by the United States to halt Russia's invasion of Ukraine, warning that such conflict pitting the NATO alliance against the Kremlin "is World War III."
The change in trade status paves the way for the United States to impose tariffs on a wide range of Russian goods, including alcohol and seafood -- namely Russian vodka and caviar.
The White House said in a statement that the measures also include denying Russian borrowing privileges at multilateral financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, extending sanctions on Russian oligarchs and their families, and a ban on new investment in any sector of the Russian economy.
"Russia has now become a global economic and financial pariah," the statement said.
The new measures come on top of several rounds of crippling economic sanctions already imposed on Russia.
Putin has suggested Russia's economy can survive despite the sanctions.
Popular Soviet-era cinema director and writer Rustam Ibragimbekov has died at the age of 83 in Moscow.
Ibragimbekov's daughter, Fatima Ibragimbekova, said on March 11 that her father died of an unspecified illness after battling it for the past three months.
Ibragimbekov wrote scripts for more than 50 movies, including the successful Soviet blockbuster White Sun Of The Desert, which vaulted him to fame in 1969.
Other popular Soviet movies based on his scripts include Guard Me, My Talisman (1986), and Urga: Close to Eden (1991).
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ibragimbekov wrote the screenplay for Burnt By The Sun (1994), which received the Grand Prix at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
For his achievements in cinema, Ibragimbekov received numerous awards in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia.
He was also the author of 15 plays staged in more than 100 theaters in Russia.
The UN human rights office said on March 11 that it had received "credible reports" of several cases of Russian forces using cluster bombs in Ukraine, adding that indiscriminate use of such weapons might amount to war crimes.
"Due to their wide area effects, the use of cluster munitions in populated areas is incompatible with the international humanitarian law principles governing the conduct of hostilities," UN spokesperson Liz Throssell told journalists in Geneva.
"We remind the Russian authorities that directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, as well as so-called area bombardment in towns and villages and other forms of indiscriminate attacks, are prohibited under international law and may amount to war crimes," she added.
Earlier this month, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance had also seen the use of cluster bombs in Ukraine.
Cluster bombs are made up of a hollow shell that explodes in mid-air, dispersing dozens or even hundreds of smaller bomblets over a wide area.
Russia is not a party to a 2008 convention banning cluster munitions, although it is bound by international humanitarian law, particularly the prohibition of indiscriminate attacks.
Kyiv has accused Russia of firing at a settlement in Belarus near the border with Ukraine in a “false flag” attempt to draw Minsk into joining Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of its neighbor.
Ukraine’s Air Command said in a statement on March 11 that border authorities received information detailing how Russian aircraft took off from an airfield in Belarus, crossed into Ukrainian airspace, and then fired back across at the Belarusian village of Kopani.
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Several Western intelligence agencies have warned that Russia will use “false flag” operations as part of its disinformation plan during its attack on Ukraine.
“This is a provocation! Goal: to get Belarusian armed forces involved in the war in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian Air Force Command said in a statement.
The Ukrainian military said two other Belarusian settlements were also targeted in the same operation.
The report came on the same day Belarus’s authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka visited with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Belarus has assisted Putin in launching the attack by allowing its territory to be used as a staging ground for Russian troops.
“We officially declare: The Ukrainian military has not planned and does not plan to take any aggressive action against the Republic of Belarus,” the security service said in a statement on its Telegram channel.
“We appeal to the Belarusian people: Do not let yourself be used in a criminal war!” it added.
Belarusian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Ina Harbachova dismissed the Ukrainian Air Force Command's statement as false.
"The Defense Ministry unequivocally states that the information about a missile strike at a Belarusian village is nonsense," Harbachova said.
European Union leaders have agreed to step up the pressure on Moscow by putting together a new package of sanctions to punish it for invading Ukraine and to double the bloc's military aid for Kyiv as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on the bloc to "do more" for his country.
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The EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said on March 11 that the leaders of the 27-member bloc attending a two-day summit in Versailles, outside Paris, agreed to inject an extra 500 million euros ($550 million) into the fund for military aid to Ukraine.
"Yesterday, I made the proposal to double our contribution with 500 million euros" worth of military aid, Borrell said. "And it is going to be done immediately. Now it flows quickly.”
The move comes a day after the EU tamped down expectations of Ukraine's accelerated accession to the bloc and more than two weeks after Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Zelenskiy said on March 11 in a video statement on Telegram that "the European Union should do more, it must do more for us, for Ukraine."
"The decisions of politicians must coincide with the mood of their people," he added in the statement.
The EU had previously spent 450 million euros ($500 million) on military supplies for Ukrainian forces in an unprecedented gesture to collectively supply weapons to a country under attack.
The EU has adopted massive sanctions targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s financial system, and its oligarchs. Earlier this week, the bloc's nations agreed to impose further sanctions on 160 individuals.
EU sanctions now apply to a total of 862 individuals and 53 entities.
Borrell said the EU will continue elaborating new sanctions targeting oligarchs and Russia's economy.
According to an EU official with direct knowledge of the talks, the bloc aims to have sanctions ready that can be activated if the war escalates further. The person was not authorized to speak publicly because of the sensitivity of discussions.
Potential new punitive measures against Russia and its close ally Belarus could include severing all their banks from the SWIFT payment system.
However, a complete embargo on fossil fuel imports from Russia similar to the one imposed by Washington is not on the table for now.
Global human rights coalition the Cotton Campaign says it has ended its campaign to boycott Uzbek cotton and textiles, citing progress in eliminating forced labor during crop harvesting last year. In a statement on March 10, Cotton Campaign said the move was made after its key partner, the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, concluded that there was no forced labor on cotton fields in the Central Asian nation in 2021. "This breakthrough in ending systematic, state-imposed forced labor was catalyzed by the brave labor and human rights defenders in Uzbekistan who took great risks to expose human rights violations in the cotton sector. Their years of fearless monitoring and reporting drove the world to take action to protect Uzbek workers," Umida Niyazova, director of Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, said in the statement. The boycott, launched in 2006, was followed by more than 260 apparel manufacturers and retailers globally. Rights groups have called on Uzbekistan for many years to eradicate a long-running state-controlled system forcing millions of citizens to pick cotton and meet harvest quotas. Since coming to power in 2016, President Shavkat Mirziyoev has gradually introduced laws to eliminate forced labor and child labor, and banned provincial authorities from forcing students and public workers to pick cotton.
The European Union's foreign policy chief says the final text of an agreement to revive a landmark nuclear accord between Iran and world powers is "essentially ready and on the table," but a pause is needed in the talks due to "external factors." Moscow demanded guarantees last week that Western sanctions related to its invasion of Ukraine would not hamper economic and military relations between Iran and Russia. The United States and European countries have rejected the idea, saying they have nothing to do with restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the 2015 nuclear deal is officially known. "As coordinator, I will, with my team, continue to be in touch with all JCPOA participants and the U.S. to overcome the current situation and to close the agreement," Josep Borrell said on Twitter on March 11. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Twitter that Tehran agreed that a pause could result in "momentum for resolving any remaining issue and a final return."
The United States urged Moscow and Tehran to take the "decisions" needed to revive the 2015 nuclear accord.
"We are confident that we can achieve mutual return to compliance...[if] those decisions are made in places like Tehran and Moscow," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters after the European Union announced a pause in negotiations.
The head of the British delegation, Stephanie al-Qaq, said on Twitter that she was "deeply disappointed" at the pause in the talks.
The last-minute hitch must be resolved in the "next few days," she warned, or else the agreement was "likely to unravel."
A senior EU official told Reuters there were still two or three technical issues that needed to be resolved between Washington and Tehran but that those could be resolved quickly.
The unnamed official said the talks had to be paused to get a response from Moscow after it was told its demands, which went beyond its nuclear commitments, could not be met.
"They are thinking about that reaction, and in the meantime we cannot advance in the sense that we cannot finalize the negotiation," the official said.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said on March 10 that there were a few issues still to be resolved -- an indication that the Russian position is not the only stumbling block that still needs to be cleared out of the way. Former President Donald Trump in 2018 pulled the United States out of the agreement that lifted most sanctions on Iran in exchange for the Islamic republic's curbing its nuclear activities. The U.S. move reimposed tough economic sanctions on Tehran, which has been violating some provisions of the deal, saying it was no longer applicable. Talks to revive the deal have been held in fits and starts in Vienna since April, including representatives from China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain, the European Union, and Iran. The EU has served as a chief interlocutor between the U.S. and Iranian delegations following Tehran refusal to meet face-to-face with the Americans. Russia's envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, dismissed suggestions that Moscow was the reason the talks had stalled. "The conclusion of the deal does not depend on Russia only," Ulyanov told reporters after meeting EU coordinator Enrique Mora. "There are others actors who need additional time and who have additional concerns, and they are being discussed," he added.
Russia is opening a criminal case against Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, and moved to label it an "extremist organization" over reported changes in its rules that allow some users to call for violence against Russia's army and its leadership in the context of the war in Ukraine. The Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said on March 11 that it was launching an investigation "due to illegal calls for the murder of Russian nationals by employees of the American company Meta." Soon afterward, the Prosecutor-General's Office requested that the social media giant be branded "extremist" and called for Instagram to be blocked in the country. The moves were sparked by a March 10 report by Reuters that internal e-mails show Meta Platforms will permit Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers after Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The report prompted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to tell reporters on March 11 that Moscow would take "decisive measures" if the story proved to be true. "We don't want to believe the Reuters report. It is just too difficult to believe," Peskov said. "We hope it is not true because if it is true, then it will mean that there will have to be the most decisive measures to end the activities of this company."
Meta Platforms' head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said on March 11 that the company's changes on speech in the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine will only apply in Ukraine itself.
He said in a statement that the policies were "focused on protecting people's rights to speech as an expression of self-defense in reaction to a military invasion of their country."
He said the company had "no quarrel with the Russian people" and there was not a change on hate speech "as far as the Russian people are concerned." He said the changes were temporary and the situation would be kept under review.
Separately on March 11, Russia's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, said it will restrict access to Instagram across the country at the request of the Prosecutor-General's Office beginning on March 14.
"The Instagram social network distributes information and materials that contain calls for implementing violent actions against citizens of the Russian Federation, including military personnel," Roskomnadzor said in a statement.
A spokesman for Meta late on March 10 cited the phrase "Death to the Russian invaders" to illustrate an exception for statements that would normally have violated guidelines. "We still won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians," the spokesman wrote on Twitter.
The UN said on March 11 it was concerned by Facebook's decision to temporarily ease its policy on violent speech, warning it could contribute to hate speech.
"This is clearly a very, very complex issue, but it does raise some concerns under the terms of human rights law and international humanitarian law," UN rights office spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell told reporters in Geneva.
Throssell warned that the new policy lacked clarity, which "could certainly contribute to hate speech directed at Russians in general."
"We may encourage them to look at certain harms that come with this change of policy," she added.
Earlier on March 11, the Russian Embassy to the United States demanded that Washington stop the "extremist activities" of Meta Platforms. "Meta's aggressive and criminal policy leading to incitement of hatred and hostility towards Russians is outrageous," the embassy said in a statement. "The company's actions are yet another evidence of the information war without rules declared on our country." The embassy called on U.S. authorities to "stop the extremist activities of Meta and take measures to bring the perpetrators to justice."
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KYIV -- RFE/RL Ukrainian Service journalist Maryan Kushnir suffered a concussion during a Russian attack on Ukrainian forces outside of Kyiv in the early morning hours of March 11.
Kushnir, who was embedded with the Ukrainian troops, reported that the attack occurred at about 3 a.m. in the town of Baryshivka, about 35 kilometers east of the capital. It was unclear if it was an air strike or a rocket attack.
“They hit the location where I was near a stadium that has been used for training,” Kushnir said. “The soldiers were staying there and some of them were wounded…. Some people were injured, but I know for sure that no one was killed.”
Local emergency workers and military medics provided assistance.
WATCH: Maryan Kushnir joined Ukrainian troops as they launched a counterattack to drive occupying Russian forces from a village in the Kyiv region on March 10.
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Kushnir has worked for RFE/RL since 2015 and has been covering the war with Russia since Moscow attacked Ukraine on February 24. Fighting in the Kyiv area has grown increasingly intense in recent days as Russian forces seek to surround the city in the face of stubborn resistance.
On March 10, Kushnir reported on an engagement between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the area. New satellite pictures appeared to indicate that a 64-kilometer-long military convoy outside Kyiv has spread into towns and forests near the capital, with towed howitzers nearby in for an assault on the city. Armored units were observed in towns near the Antonov Airport north of the city. The Ukrainian armed forces' General Staff said in a statement that Russian troops were advancing toward Kyiv from the northwest and east. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said about 2 million people had left the city and its environs.
Russia's two leading social networks have blocked material by RFE/RL's Russian Service at the request of the country’s media regulator in the latest government move to clamp down on independent news organizations. VKontakte, which is known as VK and is Russia's largest social-media company, and Odnoklassniki informed RFE/RL of the request on March 11. Yandex.Zen, which is a division of the Russian search giant Yandex, also moved to block RFE/RL's Russian Service content. The companies said media regulator Roskomnadzor made the request after the Prosecutor-General's Office claimed RFE/RL's materials published on the social networks, as well as on the online service, "carry false information of social importance that may threaten the lives and/or health of citizens, and a disruption of social order and/or public safety." The day before, VK, Odnoklassniki, and Yandex.Zen informed Current Time that its accounts will also be blocked for similar reasons.
The demands come after the government recently passed two laws that criminalize independent war reporting and any protests against the war in Ukraine. Among other things, the laws make it illegal to spread "fake news" about the Russian armed forces and threaten prison terms of up to 15 years. Roskomnadzor has ordered Russian media to only publish information provided by official sources. It has also forbidden media outlets from describing the Ukraine fight as a war or invasion, instead ordering it be called a "special military operation."
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"Not satisfied by merely blocking the websites of independent outlets, the Kremlin is now purging Russian platforms of factual information about the war in Ukraine," RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said in a statement on March 10. "No matter what measures the Putin regime takes to block our content, RFE/RL will continue to use all tools at our disposal to share the truth with Russian audiences," he said. Current Time and RFE/RL have refused official demands to censor their reporting, calling it fair and accurate. Independent news media in Russia have been under pressure for years, mainly due to the decade-old "foreign agent" law. But since the Russian invasion on February 24, a growing number of Russian and foreign media organization have suspended news operations within Russia, pulled their correspondents, and shifted to anonymous bylines. The restrictions are the tightest in Russia since the Soviet Union. Aside from Current Time -- which is a 24/7 Russian-language TV news channel run by RFE/RL in conjunction with Voice of America -- Idel.Realities, a regional RFE/RL news site covering the central Volga region, also received notification from VK. Among the major international broadcasters who have announced suspensions within Russia include BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, and CBS. Germany's ARD and ZDF suspended operations, but said on March 11 that they will resume some broadcasting from their Moscow studios. "Based on the assessment [of the situation], ARD and ZDF, following consultations with partners in the EBU [European Broadcasting Union], have decided to resume coverage of events from Moscow studios on the political, economic and social situation in Russia. However, reporting on military events in Ukraine will be done from other studios of the two public broadcasters," the said in a statement. Multiple websites of RFE/RL, the BBC, Current Time, and other outlets have also been blocked over what Russian regulators allege are erroneous reports. Roskomnadzor has also moved to block foreign social media, such as Facebook.
MOSCOW -- Kira Yarmysh, the spokeswoman for jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, has been added to Russia's wanted list on unspecified charges. Yarmysh's name appeared on the Interior Ministry's registry of wanted individuals on March 11. In April 2020, a Moscow court sentenced Yarmysh to 18 months of so-called "restricted freedom," which means that she cannot change her permanent address, leave the Moscow region without police permission, or take part in public events. The ministry did not give a detailed explanation of the move to place Yarmysh on the wanted list, but the Moscow City Court said the same day that the Federal Penitentiary Service had asked it to replace the "restricted freedom" sentence with real jail time. Yarmysh, who fled Russia in late August 2021, was found guilty of violating restrictive measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus by publicly calling for people to take part in unsanctioned rallies to support Navalny in January. Several of Navalny's supporters have been convicted on similar charges and were handed freedom-limitation sentences.
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Jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has called for protests this weekend against Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine to combat the "propaganda" machine created by President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin's most vocal critic urged the anti-war movement in a March 11 post on Instagram to put aside their fears of being arrested and take to the streets in what is "definitely not a futile fight." "Mad maniac Putin will most quickly be stopped by the people of Russia now if they oppose the war," he said in the post. Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the biggest assault on a European country since World War II, on February 24. Moscow says Ukraine poses a threat to its security. Navalny said that since then, "Putin's propaganda" had hidden the extent of casualties and lied about the reason for the war and the destruction it is wreaking on both countries. "If we believe [opinion polls], one in three supported the anti-war movement at the start of the conflict," he wrote. "And this was before the war hit us too, with sanctions and economic disaster. Before the main horror of the war -- coffins with sons returning to their mothers," he added. Since Russia launched its invasion, almost 14,000 people have been detained by police for protesting against the conflict, according to the OVD-Info, a nonprofit that monitors police arrests nationwide.
Navalny is currently serving a 2 1/2-year sentence on what his supporters and Western legal analysts call a trumped-up fraud charge. He was arrested immediately upon returning to Russia from Germany, where he was being treated for a poison attack in Siberia that he says Putin ordered.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the 2020 incident that nearly took Navalny's life. Even though he is incarcerated, Navalny is able to send messages and social-media posts to his supporters through his lawyers and close associates.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that foreigners should be allowed to join the war against Ukrainian forces and approved the handover of captured Western missile systems to Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Putin, speaking at a Russian Security Council meeting on March 11, said he supported the idea of allowing foreign individuals to join Russian-backed forces in Ukraine after Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said some 16,000 "volunteers" from the Middle East were ready to come to fight in the war on the Russian side. "If you see that there are people who want on a voluntary basis [to help the separatists in eastern Ukraine], then you need to meet them halfway and help them move to combat zones," Putin said during the televised meeting. Putin also agreed with Shoigu's proposal to give captured U.S.-made anti-tank systems such as Javelins and Stingers to fighters from the areas in eastern Ukraine under separatist control.
Russia continues to step up its attacks in Ukraine amid reports it is preparing to move in on the capital, Kyiv, and a humanitarian disaster looms over several besieged cities more than two weeks into Moscow's unprovoked invasion of its neighbor.
RFE/RL's Ukraine Live Briefing gives you all of the latest on Russia's unprovoked invasion of its neighbor, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. The Live Briefing presents the latest developments and analysis, updated throughout the day.
Ukrainian officials said on March 11 that they were hopeful some humanitarian corridors would be opened to allow civilians a chance to flee the intensifying fighting, especially in the southern city of Mariupol, where people have been without water and power for more than a week and attempts to arrange a local cease-fire and safe passage out have failed repeatedly. "We hope it will work today," Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a televised statement. Russia's Defense Ministry said it would open humanitarian corridors out of Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mariupol, and Chernihiv. But similar moves over the previous days had very limited success because of continued Russian shelling despite claims of daylong cease-fires.
Vereshchuk said later on March 11 that Russian shelling prevented evacuees from leaving the port city of Mariupol again, while elsewhere Russian forces also stopped some buses of people trying to flee the Kyiv region.
In a video address, Vereshchuk said some planned evacuations were successful, including 1,000 people who were evacuated from the village of Vorzel in the Kyiv region.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on March 11 accused Russian forces of abducting the mayor of Melitopol, a city in southeastern Ukraine that fell under Russian control during the invasion.
Russia has not commented on the fate of Mayor Ivan Fedorov. Ukraine says Russian forces kidnapped him after falsely accusing him of terrorism.
The Red Cross has said more than 400,000 people are trapped in Mariupol without humanitarian aid and evacuation corridors, and the city faces "apocalyptic" conditions. "They have a clear order to hold Mariupol hostage, to mock it, to constantly bomb and shell it," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address to the nation on March 10. Russia has been pounding cities around the country and the attacks appeared to widen overnight, with reports of air strikes on airports in the western part of the country. Local authorities in Ivano-Frankivsk and Lutsk reported bomb explosions near their airports.
Ukraine's armed forces said Russian aircraft fired at a Belarusian settlement near the border with Ukraine from Ukrainian air space on March 11 to try to drag Belarus into Moscow's war on Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Air Force said the state border service received information that Russian aircraft had taken off from an airfield in Belarus, crossed into Ukrainian airspace, and then fired at the village of Kopani.
WATCH: With infrastructure damaged and some ruins still smoldering, residents remain defiant as Russian armed forces maneuver in the vicinity of the Ukrainian capital. Current Time visited Pushcha-Vodytsya, a small spa town just a few kilometers outside Kyiv, on March 10 and spoke to locals.
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"This is a PROVOCATION! The goal is to involve the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus in the war with Ukraine!" Ukraine's Air Force Command said in an online statement.
The Ukrainian military said two other Belarusian settlements were also targeted in the same operation.
Ukraine's Deputy Interior Minister Yevheniy Yenin said in an interview that Russia is trying everything possible to prompt Belarus to open a new front in Moscow's war against Ukraine.
"We also understand that the Belarusian government has been doing everything possible to avoid joining this war," Yenin added. Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Heraschenko said that three Russian air strikes hit the eastern industrial city of Dnipro on March 11, killing at least one person. State emergency services said the strikes were close to a kindergarten and an apartment building.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces had “reached a strategic turning point," though he did not elaborate.
“It’s impossible to say how many days we will still need to free our land, but it is possible to say that we will do it," he said via video from Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Russian troops were seen to be moving to encircle Kyiv after days of slowly edging toward the capital. Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed a 64- kilometer-long line of vehicles, tanks, and artillery outside Kyiv had been redeployed, with armored units seen in towns near the Antonov Airport north of the city. Some vehicles moved into forests, Maxar reported, with towed howitzers nearby in position to open fire.
The British Defense Ministry said it appeared that after logistical issues stifled the progress of Russian troops in the days after the invasion was launched on February 24, Moscow was likely to renew its offensive in the coming days. "Russia is likely seeking to reset and reposture its forces for renewed offensive activity in the coming days. This will probably include operations against the capital Kyiv," it said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said about 2 million people had left the city and its environs.
The Ukrainian armed forces' General Staff said in a statement that Russian troops were advancing toward Kyiv from the northwest and east but were repulsed from Chernihiv as Ukrainian forces regained control of Baklanova Muraviyka.
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin said on March 11 that he backed a plan to allow foreigners to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine, with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu saying that "most of those who want and who asked [to fight] are citizens of Middle East countries and Syrians." Since 2015, Russian forces have backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against various groups opposed to his rule, including Islamic State.
WATCH: The Ukrainian port city of Odesa has been turned into a "fortress," according to a correspondent for RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
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International efforts to isolate and sanction Russia are under way, particularly after a deadly air strike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol that Western and Ukrainian officials called a war crime. Ukraine accused Russian forces of hitting another medical facility on March 11, this time a psychiatric hospital near the eastern Ukrainian town of Izyum. The regional governor called the bombardment "a brutal attack on civilians." Emergency services said no one was hurt as the patients were already sheltering in the basement. Russia has said it is not targeting civilian installations, but pictures, video, and eyewitness accounts have shown persistent attacks on residential buildings and other nonmilitary sites, raising calls from Western and Ukrainian officials for an investigation into war crimes by Moscow.
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Amid mounting global outrage over the attack on the Mariupol hospital which claimed three lives, including that of a young girl, top diplomats from Moscow and Kyiv failed to make progress on a possible cease-fire or even humanitarian corridors for civilians. "From everything that we know and have witnessed, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin shows no sign of engaging in serious diplomacy," U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said at a news conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis during a visit to Bucharest on March 11.
WATCH: Devastating Russian military attacks on civilian residential areas northwest of the Ukrainian capital are driving more people to make the difficult journey to Kyiv.
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Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden said on March 11 that in unison with the G7 group of wealthy nations, Washington will revoke Russia's "permanent normal trade relations" status, commonly referred to as most-favored nation status, to punish President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.
"The free world is coming together to confront Putin," Biden said in remarks at White House.
European Union leaders meeting in France said they were ready to impose harsher economic sanctions on Russia and might give Ukraine more funds for arms. But they rejected Ukraine's request to join the bloc.
Regarding further sanctions, French President Emmanuel Macron said: "Nothing is off the table. Nothing is taboo. We'll do whatever we deem necessary to stop Russia."
On March 10, the EU continued to tighten sanctions on those "implicated in the Russian aggression in Ukraine," agreeing on new measures targeting another 14 oligarchs, 146 members of Russia's upper house of parliament, and their families.
WATCH: As Ukrainians flee Russia's invasion, Current Time spoke to people on the move in Kyiv and Lviv who hope to find a safe haven inside or outside the country.
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The number of people to have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion continues to grow, with the head of the UN refugee agency estimating on March 11 that the figure had reached 2.5 million people.
"We also estimate that about 2 million people are displaced inside Ukraine. Millions forced to leave their homes by this senseless war," Grandi wrote on Twitter.
Paul Dillon, spokesman for the UN's International Organization for Migration, said some 116,000 nationals from other countries were among the 2.5 million refugees. Dillon also said that more than 1.5 million refugees had gone to neighboring Poland.
The top prosecutor with the International Criminal Court has asked for the arrests of three South Ossetian officials he said may have committed war crimes during the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. Karim Khan, the court’s main prosecutor, said in a statement on March 10 he had asked judges to approve the warrants. "My application for these warrants of arrest focuses specifically on unlawful confinement, ill-treatment, hostage taking, and subsequent unlawful transfer of ethnic Georgian civilians in the context of an occupation by the Russian Federation," Khan said in a statement. The brief 2008 war resulted in Russia invading Georgia, and essentially carving out South Ossetia and another region, Abkhazia, from control of the government in Tbilisi. Russia later said it considered the two regions independent states -- a declaration unrecognized virtually anywhere in the world. Even if the court's judges approve the arrest warrants, it's unclear how they would be put into effect, and by whom. Georgia is a member of The Hague court. However, Russia, which is not, has de facto control over South Ossetia, and is unlikely to turn the individuals over to the court.
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MARY, Turkmenistan -- Turkmen public-sector workers and their families in a southeastern district have been ordered to participate in early presidential voting and cast their ballots for the son of the current president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. The reports from residents of Mary Province to RFE/RL were the latest in growing evidence that Turkmen officials are seeking to manipulate balloting in the March 12 vote, in which Berdymukhammedov is not running for reelection. The snap election in the tightly controlled Central Asian country is widely seen just a formality to transfer power from Berdymukhammedov to his son, Serdar. "All [state] employees were strictly ordered by the authorities to cast their ballots or March 10 or 11. Those who can't come to [early voting] must explain the reason to the authorities in written form," one resident of Mary city told RFE/RL on March 10. Residents spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity due to fear of prosecution or retaliation by the authoritarian government that has long tolerated no dissent. Another Mary resident said that local officials had told people to "vote for Serdar, the son of our president." Election workers have been instructed that they must help voters to find Berdymukhammedov's name among the total of nine candidates on the ballot papers, he added. No election in Turkmenistan has been deemed free and fair by Western election monitors.
Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov took over as president in 2006 after the death of the long-ruling, idiosyncratic president, Saparmurat Niyazov. Observers had initially hoped that Berdymukhammedov might undo some of Niyazov's excesses, and open up the gas-rich country to more outside investment and foreign trade. But Berdymukhammedov has imposed his own brand of autocratic rule. In February, Berdymukhammedov, 65, announced that he intended to step aside to allow power to be turned over to "young leaders." The following day, parliament set the date for an early presidential election. Serdar Berdymukhammedov, 40, is expected to easily win the election. Eight other contenders are viewed as token candidates to make the vote look like a genuine race. In recent days, local officials and public sector employees have been going door-to-door to distribute invites for voters to take part in the election. One Ashgabat resident told RFE/RL that, "those who distributed the papers, also told each voter that they must vote for Serdar Berdymukhammedov." As part of his election campaign, Serdar has made several trips to the provinces amid tight security in recent days. RFE/RL correspondents reported that the streets on the route of his visit had been paved and reconstructed, and new trees were planted along the way. Should he succeed his father, Serdar would take over one of the most isolated and impoverished states in Central Asia, despite its vast natural-gas resources.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has condemned Belarus, the only country in Europe still applying the death penalty, for its execution of a man whose case was still being examined by the UN agency. The UNHRC said in a statement on March 10 that Viktar Paulau's relatives were only recently informed that the death sentence handed to him in 2019 on a murder charge that he said he confessed to after being tortured, had been carried out. Last year Belarusian authorities refused to give any information about Paulau's whereabouts to his relatives and human rights organizations, which prompted suggestions that he might have been executed. It was the 15th execution carried out in Belarus over the past 12 years where a case with the UNHRC was still pending, according to the statement. Paulau turned to the Human Rights Committee in 2020, claiming that he had been tortured in detention, denied access to legal assistance, and subjected to an unfair trial.
The committee registered the case and had asked Belarus to stay the execution while independent experts examined his allegations of human rights violations. "In addition to reiterating its requests for suspending the execution, since June 2021, the committee has repeatedly asked for clarification from Belarus on Paulau's situation in light of information it received that he had been executed behind closed doors," the statement said. "However, Belarus did not respond to the committee's various requests." The committee said it also found that Belarus's failure to comply with its request for interim measures violated international rules. "Despite Paulau's execution, [the UNHRC] will fully examine his case at one of its upcoming sessions," the statement said. For years, the UN and the European Union have urged Belarus to join other countries in declaring a moratorium on capital punishment. According to rights organizations, more than 400 people have been sentenced to death in Belarus since it gained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russia's two leading social networks have blocked Current Time's content at the request of the country's media regulator, in the latest government move to clamp down on independent news organizations. VKontakte, which is known as VK and is Russia's largest social-media company, and Odnoklassniki informed Current Time of the request on March 10. Yandex.Zen, which is a division of the Russian search giant Yandex, also moved to block Current Time. The companies said media regulator Roskomnadzor made the request after the Prosecutor-General's Office claimed that Current Time's materials published on the social networks and the online service "carry false information of social importance that may threaten the lives and/or heath of citizens, or a disruption of social order and/or public safety." The demands come days after the government passed two laws that criminalize independent war reporting and protesting the war in Ukraine. Among other things, the laws make it illegal to spread "fake news" about the Russian armed forces. Roskomnadzor has ordered media to only publish information provided by official sources. It has also forbidden media organizations from describing the fighting in Ukraine as a "war" or "invasion," instead ordering that it be called a "special military operation."
"Not satisfied by merely blocking the websites of independent outlets, the Kremlin is now purging Russian platforms of factual information about the war in Ukraine," RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said in a statement. "No matter what measures the Putin regime takes to block our content, RFE/RL will continue to use all tools at our disposal to share the truth with Russian audiences," he said. The independent newspaper Novaya gazeta has begun pulling its war reporting offline. The stalwart Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy has been all but shut down.
Current Time and RFE/RL have refused official demands to censor their reporting, calling it fair and accurate.
Independent news media in Russia have been under pressure for years, mainly due to the decade-old "foreign agent" law. But since the Russian invasion on February 24, there has been a growing number of Russian and foreign media organization that have suspended news operations within Russia, pulled their correspondents, and shifted bylines to anonymous names. The restrictions are the worst within Russia since the Soviet Union. Aside from Current Time -- which is a 24/7 Russian-language TV news channel run by RFE/RL in conjunction with Voice of America -- Idel.Realities, a regional RFE/RL news site covering the central Volga region, also received notification from VK. The messages by Odnoklassniki and Yandex.Zen also urged editors to delete reports covering the war in Ukraine and saying that failure to do so would lead to Current Time's full blockage. Among the major international broadcasters who have announced suspensions within Russia include BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, CBS, and Germany's ARD and ZDF.
Multiple websites of RFE/RL, the BBC, Current Time, and other outlets have also been blocked over what Russian regulators allege are erroneous reports. Roskomnadzor has also moved to block foreign social media such as Facebook.
Authorities in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have held talks after an exchange of gunfire killed one person and wounded another near a disputed segment of the border between the Central Asian neighbors. Officials from Kyrgyzstan's Batken district and Tajikistan's Sughd region held talks on March 10 after border guards from the two sides exchanged fire earlier in the day. The Kyrgyz Border Guard Service said the incident happened after Tajik border guards moved into a disputed area and demanded Kyrgyz guards leave. The service told RFE/RL that the sides agreed at the talks to investigate the incident separately. There were no casualties among the Kyrgyz border guards. There has been no official statement from the Tajik side on the situation, but local residents near the site where the incident took place told RFE/RL that one Tajik border guard was killed and one civilian was wounded in the exchange of gunfire. A local hospital worker told RFE/RL that there were casualties from the shooting but did not provide details. The incident took place less than two months after clashes erupted along a segment of the two countries' poorly demarcated border in a standoff over a blocked road in late January. Tajikistan's State Committee for National Security said at the time that two civilians were killed and 10 people wounded, including six security personnel and four civilians. Kyrgyz authorities said 12 Kyrgyz were seriously wounded and more than 24,200 Kyrgyz were evacuated from the area of the fighting. Almost half of the 970-kilometer-long Kyrgyz-Tajik border has yet to be demarcated, leading to frequent tension since the two countries gained independence after the breakup of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago. Many border areas in Central Asia have been disputed since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the volatile Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan meet. In April 2021, clashes that involved military personnel along the Tajik-Kyrgyz border left dozens of people dead on both sides.
Russia's Economic Development Ministry has drafted legislation aimed at preventing the mounting exit of international businesses from Russia over the war in Ukraine, and potentially laying the groundwork for nationalizing them. The bill envisions that the state-owned Vnesheconombank and the state export-guarantee agency would have the right to seize the property of foreign companies that left Russian markets of their own accord. The bill comes as a growing number of major international companies have announced they will suspend operations in the country, or pull out altogether, in connection with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The legislation "is the first step toward the nationalization of foreign organizations leaving Russia," said the ruling United Russia party, which dominates parliament and routinely rubber-stamps government or Kremlin initiatives. Under the bill, Russia would have a right to take over foreign businesses for up to three months in cases where foreign companies' managers "de facto ceased" to direct the businesses. The bill also states that when foreign companies carry out actions that could lead to their "ungrounded" liquidation or bankruptcy, the government will have up to six months to take them over. The new companies' shares would be offered for trading, while the old companies would be liquidated. If nobody was interested in owning the new companies, they would be nationalized, the bill says. According to the Izvestia newspaper, the ministry has already sent to the government and the Prosecutor-General's Office a list of some 60 foreign companies that have left the Russian market and may be nationalized.
Among other businesses, the list includes Volkswagen, Apple, IKEA, Microsoft, IBM, Shell, McDonald's, Porsche, H&M, and others.
Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, said it would close its operations in Russia entirely, making it the first major Wall Street bank to do so. And JPMorgan Chase said it was winding down its Russian banking business. Speaking at a meeting at the Kremlin on March 10, President Vladimir Putin tried to push back on the Western sanction that have hammered the Russian economy, and could cause severe economic problems in the coming months. "The pressure of sanctions has always been there. Yes, of course, now it is complex and creates certain challenges, problems, difficulties for us," Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript.
"But just as we overcame these difficulties in the previous years, we will overcome them now. We must go through this period. The economy will certainly adapt to the new situation."
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