Formed in a fury to counter Russia’s blitzkrieg attack, Ukraine’s hundreds-strong volunteer “hacker” corps is much more than a paramilitary cyberattack force in Europe’s first major war of the internet age. It is crucial to information combat and to crowdsourcing intelligence.

“We are really a swarm. A self-organizing swarm,” said Roman Zakharov, a 37-year-old IT executive at the center of Ukraine’s bootstrap digital army.

Inventions of the volunteer hackers range from software tools that let smartphone and computer owners anywhere participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks on official Russian websites to bots on the Telegram messaging platform that block disinformation, let people report Russian troop locations and offer instructions on assembling Molotov cocktails and basic first aid.

Zahkarov ran research at an automation startup before joining Ukraine’s digital self-defense corps. His group is StandForUkraine. Its ranks include software engineers, marketing managers, graphic designers and online ad buyers, he said.

The movement is global, drawing on IT professionals in the Ukrainian diaspora whose handiwork includes web defacements with antiwar messaging and graphic images of death and destruction in the hopes of mobilizing Russians against the invasion.

“Both our nations are scared of a single man — (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” said Zakharov. “He’s just out of his mind.” Volunteers reach out person-to-person to Russians with phone calls, emails and text messages, he said, and send videos and pictures of dead soldiers from the invading force from virtual call centers.

Some build websites, such as a “site where Russian mothers can look through (photos of) captured Russian guys to find their sons,” Zakharov said by phone from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

The cyber volunteers’ effectiveness is difficult to gauge. Russian government websites have been repeatedly knocked offline, if briefly, by the DDoS attacks, but generally weather them with countermeasures.

It’s impossible to say how much of the disruption — including more damaging hacks — is caused by freelancers working independently of but in solidarity with Ukrainian hackers.

A tool called “Liberator” lets anyone in the world with a digital device become part of a DDoS attack network, or botnet. The tool’s programmers code in new targets as priorities change.

But is it legal? Some analysts say it violates international cyber norms. Its Estonian developers say they acted “in coordination with the Ministry of Digital Transformation” of Ukraine.

A top Ukrainian cybersecurity official, Victor Zhora, insisted at his first online news conference of the war Friday that homegrown volunteers were attacking only what they deem military targets, in which he included the financial sector, Kremlin-controlled media and railways. He did not discuss specific targets.

Zakharov did. He said Russia’s banking sector was well fortified against attack but that some telecommunications networks and rail services were not. He said Ukrainian-organized cyberattacks had briefly interrupted rail ticket sales in western Russia around Rostov and Voronezh and knocked out telephone service for a time in the region of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. The claims could not be independently confirmed.

A group of Belarusian hacktivists calling themselves the Cyber Partisans also apparently disrupted rail service in neighboring Belarus this week seeking to frustrate transiting Russian troops. A spokeswoman said Friday that electronic ticket sales were still down after their malware attack froze up railway IT servers.

Over the weekend, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, announced the creation of an volunteer cyber army. The IT Army of Ukraine now counts 290,000 followers on Telegram.

Zhora, deputy chair of the state special communications service, said one job of Ukrainian volunteers is to obtain intelligence that can be used to attack Russian military systems.

Some cybersecurity experts have expressed concern that soliciting help from freelancers who violate cyber norms could have dangerous escalatory consequences. One shadowy group claimed to have hacked Russian satellites; Dmitry Rogozin, the director general of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, called the claim false but was also quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying such a cyberattack would be considered an act of war.

Asked if he endorsed the kind of hostile hacking being done under the umbrella of the Anonymous hacktivist brand — which anyone can claim — Zhora said, “We do not welcome any illegal activity in cyberspace.”

“But the world order changed on the 24th of February,” he added, when Russia invaded.

The overall effort was spurred by the creation of a group called the Ukrainian Cyber Volunteers by a civilian cybersecurity executive, Yegor Aushev, in coordination with Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. Aushev said it numbers more than 1,000 volunteers.

On Friday, most of Ukraine’s telecommunications and internet were fully operational despite outages in areas captured by invading Russian forces, said Zhora. He reported about 10 hostile hijackings of local government websites in Ukraine to spread false propaganda saying Ukraine’s government had capitulated.

Zhora said presumed Russian hackers continued trying to spread destructive malware in targeted email attacks on Ukrainian officials and — in what he considers a new tactic — to infect the devices of individual citizens. Three instances of such malware were discovered in the runup to the invasion.

U.S. Cyber Command has been assisting Ukraine since well before the invasion. Ukraine does not have a dedicated military cyber unit. It was standing one up when Russia attacked.

Zhora anticipates an escalation in Russia’s cyber aggression — many experts believe far worse is yet to come.

Meantime, donations from the global IT community continue to pour in. A few examples: NameCheap has donated internet domains while Amazon has been generous with cloud services, said Zakharov.
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As Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine’s cities intensifies, hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing the country. The United Nations has appealed to donor countries for help, as Henry Ridgwell reports from the Polish-Ukrainian border.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that Russian forces “are increasingly using brutal methods in Ukraine, including going at civilian populations.”

His comments followed a Russian attack on a Ukrainian nuclear plant — the largest facility of its kind in Europe — that had sparked a fire in a building at the plant compound.

Speaking to reporters before a meeting with his European Union counterparts in Brussels, Blinken said, “We are faced together with what is [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin’s war of choice: unprovoked, unjustified, and a war that is having horrific, horrific consequences.”

“We’re committed to doing everything we can to make it stop,” he added, but ruled out imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying such an action could lead to a broader conflict.

“We have a responsibility to ensure the war does not spill over beyond Ukraine. … A no-fly zone could lead to a full-fledged war in Europe,” he said.

The meeting in Brussels came after Ukraine accused Russia of “nuclear terror” for shelling and starting a fire at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant before taking control of it. The plant is in the city of Enerhodar, in the country’s southeast.

Ukraine’s nuclear inspectorate said that no radiation had leaked at the plant and that personnel were continuing to operate the facility safely. Firefighters were able to get the blaze under control, Ukrainian officials said.

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Friday to discuss the attack at the request of the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Norway and Albania.

“The world narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe last night,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said during the meeting. “We’ve just witnessed a dangerous new escalation that represents a dire threat to all of Europe and the world.”

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said a Russian “projectile” hit a training center at the plant.

“This just demonstrates the recklessness of this war,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said of the power plant attack before Friday’s meeting in Brussels with Blinken and EU foreign ministers.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov blamed the attack on a Ukranian “sabotage group” that he said had occupied the plant’s training building, attacked a Russian patrol and set the building on fire as it left. He offered no evidence, and no other country appeared to take the claim seriously.

The Zaporizhzhia facility produces about 25% of Ukraine’s power.

Nuclear safety experts have expressed concern that fighting so close to the power station could cut off the plant’s power supply, which would adversely affect its ability to keep nuclear fuel cool and would increase the possibility of a nuclear meltdown.

On the ground

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday that Russian ground forces were attacking a Ukrainian town near Odesa and that the United States was watching to see what it meant for the city.

A Russian convoy outside the capital, Kyiv, was still trying to reach the city, he said, but the “actions by the Ukrainians have in fact stalled that convoy … stopped it in some places.”

Ukraine’s use of its air and missile defenses has been “quite extraordinary,” Kirby said.

On Thursday, local Ukrainian government officials and the Russian military confirmed the seizure of the strategic port of Kherson, but a U.S. defense official said Washington was unable to confirm the development.

Russian troops were besieging the port city of Mariupol, east of Kherson, an attempt Mayor Vadym Boichenko said was aimed at isolating Ukraine.

A Russian diplomat said Friday that Russia had no intention of occupying Ukraine should its invasion be successful, and that its troops would withdraw once it had fulfilled its objective.

Speaking to reporters at U.N. headquarters in Geneva, Russian Ambassador Gennady Gatilov called the invasion a “military operation with limited objectives,” which he said were to “denazify the regime and demilitarize Ukraine.”

Ukraine is a country with a democratically elected Jewish president who lost relatives in the Holocaust. Historians and political observers view Russia’s invocation of World War II as disinformation.

Possibility of more sanctions

Blinken said Friday that the United States was considering additional sanctions against Russia and had not ruled out anything.

“Nothing is off the table. We are evaluating the sanctions every day,” he said.

On Thursday, Washington heaped another round of sanctions on Putin’s inner circle.

“Today I’m announcing that we’re adding dozens of names to the list, including one of Russia’s wealthiest billionaires, and I’m banning travel to America by more than 50 Russian oligarchs, their families and their close associates,” President Joe Biden said Thursday before a Cabinet meeting. “And we’re going to continue to support the Ukrainian people with direct assistance.”

VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching, National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin, Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb, Istanbul Foreign Correspondent Heather Murdock, White House Correspondent Anita Powell and Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday that the reactors at Ukraine’s largest nuclear plant had not been affected during a Russian attack on the site in the early hours Friday that shocked the globe and raised fears of a possible nuclear accident.

“We confirm through our contacts at the regulator, but also directly from plant — we were able to confirm that no security or safety systems have been compromised, neither of the reactors themselves have been hit by this projectile,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

Unusually, the nuclear watchdog chief spoke by video connection from an airplane. He said he was on a flight to Iran to deal with outstanding nuclear issues there.

Grossi told council members that Ukraine has four large nuclear sites, 15 reactors and associated facilities, as well as the defunct Chernobyl site, which experienced a catastrophic meltdown in 1986.

He did not name Russia when describing the attack, saying only that “a projectile” hit a building adjacent to the block of reactors at Zaporizhzhia and sparked the fire, which was later extinguished.

“After this, the operation of and at the plant continued,” he said. “We consider from a technical point of view that operation continues normally, although as I have stressed to the board of governors of the IAEA, there is no, of course, ‘normalcy’ about this situation when there are military forces, of course, in charge of the site.”

Grossi said his agency was in contact with the Ukrainian government, its nuclear regulators, and the company and operators at the Zaporizhzhia site.

“At the same time, today, I indicated in the morning my readiness to travel, as soon as practicable, to Chernobyl in order to consult, of course, with our Ukrainian counterparts, but also if necessary and when necessary to the forces in charge, in order to establish a stable framework so the observance of the basic principles of safety and security, starting with the physical integrity of the facilities, can be observed,” Grossi said.

He emphasized that any such mission would be strictly to deal with the safety and security of the facilities, not the political or diplomatic dimensions.

Violation of international law

“Attacks on nuclear power facilities are contrary to international humanitarian law,” U.N. Undersecretary for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo told the council. “Specifically, Article 56 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions states that: ‘Works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dikes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.'”

DiCarlo said it is critical that all parties work with the IAEA to establish a proper framework to ensure the safe, secure and reliable operation of the country’s nuclear power plants, as well as to grant swift and safe passage to IAEA personnel if they need to enter Ukraine.

Council members expressed concern that nuclear sites must not become part of the conflict.

“Russia’s attack last night put Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at grave risk,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. “It was incredibly reckless and dangerous, and it threatened the safety of civilians across Russia, Ukraine and Europe.”

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia denied that his country’s military had shelled Zaporizhzhia, saying such accusations were part of a “massive anti-Russian propaganda campaign.” He said, without offering evidence, that Ukrainian nationalist saboteurs orchestrated the attack and wanted Moscow to be blamed for it.

“The danger to the civilian population of Ukraine is not emanating from Russian troops. It is coming from Ukrainian nationalists who are holding the civilian populations of a number of large cities hostage and carrying out acts of sabotage and provocation, one of which is what we are now discussing,” Nebenzia said. “After that, they try to blame Russia for all of it.”

Possible war crimes

Ukraine’s envoy said Russia has retaliated against the people of Ukraine with war crimes and crimes against humanity that it no longer tries to hide.

“Indeed, every day provides us with newer and newer evidence that it is not only Ukraine under Russian attack, it is Europe. It is the entire world. It is humanity,” Sergiy Kyslytsya said. “And finally, it is the future of the next generations.”

Kyslytsya renewed his government’s appeal for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying he had sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council president regarding it.

“In this regard, we request you to consider the issue of protection of nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructure in Ukraine,” the envoy added. “Urgent discussion on establishing a ban on all flights in the airspace of Ukraine should be a top priority for the Security Council.”

Asked by reporters after the meeting if a no-fly zone was possibile, British Ambassador Barbara Woodward said that such zones require guarantees.

“And in order to guarantee it, NATO would have to put troops in the air, and that would or could bring them into direct conflict with Russian troops,” she said. “So, it would be a very high risk of escalating the conflict, and what we want to see is the de-escalation of the conflict and for Russian troops to go home and for Putin to end the war.”

There have been “thousands of casualties,” the U.N. said Friday, and more than 1.2 million people have fled Ukraine for safety as the Russian military continues to intensify its offensive.

Earlier Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke by phone with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. They discussed liaison mechanisms for the safe evacuation of civilians and coordination to deliver humanitarian aid to all those who need it through out Ukraine, Guterres’ spokesperson said.
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The head of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, is again threatening to end service to the International Space Station, saying Russia will stop supplying rocket engines to the United States and may curtail cooperation on the station in retaliation for Western sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. NASA says operations on the orbiting observatory are normal.  

In an interview with Russian state television Thursday, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said, considering the situation, “We can’t supply the United States with our world’s best rocket engines. Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don’t know what.”

Rogozin said Russia has delivered 122 RD-180 engines to the U.S. since the 1990s, of which 98 have been used to power Atlas launch vehicles. The Washington Post said the engines are also used by United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing to launch national security missions for the Pentagon. 

Russia said it would cut off the supply of the RD-181 engines used in Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, which is used to fly cargo and supplies to the International Space Station. 

Projects with Germans scrapped

Rogozin tweeted Thursday that Russian cosmonauts would not cooperate with Germany on joint experiments on the Russian segment of the ISS. Roscosmos will conduct them independently. He went on to say the “Russian space program will be adjusted against the backdrop of sanctions; the priority will be the creation of satellites in the interests of defense.” 

Earlier in the week, in another interview with state television, Rogozin noted Russia is responsible for space station navigation, as well as fuel deliveries to the orbiting lab. He said Roscosmos “will closely monitor the actions of our American partners and, if they continue to be hostile, we will return to the question of the existence of the International Space Station.”

Russia had announced earlier that it was suspending cooperation with Europe on space launches from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana in response to Western sanctions.

Cooperation in space has traditionally avoided politics, and when asked about the situation Tuesday during a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, “Despite the challenges here on Earth, and they are substantial …. NASA continues the working relationship with all our international partners to ensure their safety and the ongoing safe operations of the ISS.”

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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Russian internet regulator Roskomnadzor on Friday said it has blocked access to Facebook in the country.

It said it took the action following “26 cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources by Facebook.”

It said Facebook “has restricted access to accounts: the Zvezda TV channel, the RIA Novosti news agency, Sputnik, Russia Today, the Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru information resources.”

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week, social media companies have taken measures to restrict access to Russian state media.

On February 27, the European Union announced it was “banning Russia Today and Sputnik from broadcasting in the EU.” YouTube reportedly also blocked RT in the EU.

Twitter announced Monday that it will start labeling and making it harder for users to see tweets about the invasion of Ukraine that contain information from Russian state media like RT and Sputnik.

Facebook has taken similar measures.

Also on Friday, Russia’s legislature advanced a new law that would make publishing “fake news” about the army a crime punishable with jail time.

“If the fakes lead to serious consequences, (the legislation) threatens imprisonment of up to 15 years,” the lower house of parliament said in a statement, according to AFP.

The new law led the BBC to suspend activities in Russia.

Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels, said NATO allies are not seeking conflict with Russia, but they are ready for it if it comes.

Speaking to reporters ahead of Friday’s NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, Blinken added that the alliance “will defend every inch of NATO territory,” if it comes to that. 

Stoltenberg condemned Russia’s overnight assault on civilians and Ukraine, particularly the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, near the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar. 

He said the attack “demonstrates the recklessness of this war and the importance of ending it, and the importance of Russia withdrawing all its troops and engaging in good faith in diplomatic efforts.”

Stoltenberg emphasized NATO is a defensive alliance and is not seeking conflict with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeatedly has called for NATO to establish no-fly zone around Ukraine since the invasion began, but NATO allies have resisted a step that would draw them into a direct war with Russia.

The secretary general noted Friday there should be “no misunderstanding about our commitment to defend and protect all allies.” He said they have increased the presence of NATO forces in eastern Europe “as a defensive presence.”

NATO’s chief added that U.S. and Canadian troops have joined their European allies in the region and are “stepping up with more presence in the eastern part of the Alliance, on land, at sea and in the air.”

The secretary general noted NATO foreign ministers are meeting to coordinate and consult the alliance’s response to Russian invasion of Ukraine and consider its long-term implications.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Larysa left Kharkiv three days ago with her 9-year-old daughter, and trauma is etched across her face. Her jitteriness suggests she is suffering shellshock, and she is already missing her husband who decided to stay and fight.

Her name means citadel but her high-rise apartment in Ukraine’s second largest city — the scene of some of the most brutal fighting since Russia’s invasion — did not feel like a fortress.

Shelling nearby and the impact of rockets and missiles rocked the building and shattered windows.

“The Russians don’t care what they hit. We sheltered in the basement,” the 34-year-old teacher says, as she waited Thursday to cross into Slovakia, from where she will join a grandmother living in Lithuania.

Her story is echoed by many others who have escaped the worst of the fighting, either to reach the relative safety of western Ukraine, which is still bracing for war to arrive, or overseas for an exile of unknowable duration.

Those under shelling now — in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, the seaport in the south of the country on the Sea of Azov that the Russians have surrounded — say the tempo and intensity of the bombardments have increased in the past day or so, causing massive damage to residential districts.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned Thursday “the worst is yet to come,” a judgment he made after a long phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And Macron’s grim prediction sends a chill of fear down the spine of Ihor, who exchanged text messages with VOA from his home in encircled Mariupol.

“The shelling never stops,” he said. “We are running low on food, and it is very dangerous to go out to try to find supplies.”

Contact with people in Mariupol is difficult and intermittent, with the internet and phone service going on and off. “Grozny” is on the lips of many Ukrainians in the port city, a reference to the near destruction of the Chechen capital in late 1999 to early 2000, when Putin was prime minister and in the process of succeeding Boris Yeltsin as president.

They say that vicious and intensifying shelling shows that despite what Putin reportedly told Macron — the invasion is going “according to the plan” — Russian efforts to subdue Ukraine are not working out.

That view is shared by independent military analysts, including Nigel Gould-Davies of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a defense think tank based in London. “As the situation becomes more volatile and less predictable, escalation may be the only way forward for Putin,” he said in a commentary.

“Putin drastically underestimated Ukraine’s cohesion and will to resist,” he said, adding that the Russian president “has every incentive to end the war as quickly as possible.”

“There are two ways he could do this. The first, which he has now begun to try, is to win the war through drastic escalation. But the meaning of victory is now less clear than ever. While Russia can occupy Ukraine at great human cost, no Russian puppet regime it installs will be legitimate or stable. Russia’s international isolation and domestic crisis will intensify.

“The second is for Putin to scale back his goals and negotiate a peace short of regime change in Kyiv,” said Gould-Davies. “But given Putin’s obsession with Ukraine and the stakes he has raised; this would be a humiliating setback that he would consider only if his own regime’s survival were in doubt.”

The military analyst is not alone in thinking that a war of choice by Putin has potentially morphed into a war of necessity, and for his own political survival.

In the nine days of the invasion, Russian forces have managed only to seize one city so far. That’s the strategically important Black Sea port of Kherson, home to 300,000 people, where Moscow claims Russian forces control government buildings as part of their effort to cut Ukraine off from the sea via its key southern ports. Russia’s claims have not been confirmed.

Seizing Kherson gives Russian forces access to the mainland from Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and to establish a land corridor linking Moscow’s two breakaway regions in the Donbas with Crimea. It also allows Russian troops to tighten their siege of Mariupol.

Midweek, Kherson’s Mayor Igor Kolykhayev confirmed Russian troops had forced their way into the city. But there are still local reports of sporadic fighting, although the local TV tower has been seized and the Russians already are broadcasting from it, say locals who have been cut off from Ukrainian channels.

Ukrainian intelligence officials say Russian troops are preparing to stage scenes of their forces being greeted as heroes, with people being moved in from Crimea as “extras.”

“When Russians can’t achieve real goals, they focus on fake TV coverage,” tweeted Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

“Having seized a TV tower in Kherson, they plan a show: Russian troops provide humanitarian aid, while fake ‘locals’ brought in from Crimea stage a fake ‘demo’ in favor of Kherson region ‘uniting’ with Crimea,” he said.

With Kherson fallen, military strategists expect Russian forces now will turn their attention to the major port of Odesa, Ukraine’s third-largest city, 100 kilometers to the west of Kherson. If they can manage to capture Odesa, Ukraine would be cut off from the Black Sea.

Up north, Russian forces are having an even tougher time and have not managed to capture a major city, but attention is focusing on what is happening with a huge armored column 30 kilometers or so north of Kyiv, which has not moved as fast as many expected.

U.S. defense officials and independent military analysts are split on why the column has moved so little for days, with some using the word “stalled” to describe its non-advance and hazarding that the Russians are running short of fuel and supplies. Others are suggesting Russian forces might be in the process of re-grouping in preparation for a major thrust on the Ukrainian capital.

 
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Countries across Asia are condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some key Asian countries are even joining international sanctions against Moscow. As VOA’s Bill Gallo reports, it is not just U.S. allies that are concerned.
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China has rejected a report that said its officials told their Russian counterparts to delay an invasion of Ukraine until after the Beijing Winter Olympics. Experts say the flap indicates Chinese leaders could have known an attack was coming and that such a discovery would taint China’s reputation in the West.

Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called the March 3 New York Times report “pure fake news.” The newspaper cited a Western intelligence report saying senior Chinese officials told senior Russian officials in early February not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Feb. 4-20 Games. The war began a week ago.

“Such practice of diverting attention and blame-shifting is despicable,” Wang told a regular news conference Thursday.

“The ins and outs of the developments of the Ukraine issue are very clear. The crux of the issue is known to all,” he said.

In Washington, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said the report’s “claims are speculation without any basis and are intended to blame-shift and smear China.”

National leaders seldom tell one another in advance about upcoming wars, so information between Russia and China would point to a special relationship, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

“It is important, because it shows the nature and the depth of the China-Russia relations,” Sun said. “If China identifies with Russian invasions, then China is an accomplice. We cannot expect China to respond in a constructive way.”

In the United States, which has harshly criticized Russia’s invasion, State Department spokesperson Jalina Porter said Thursday that supporters of Moscow will land on the “wrong side of history” and that “the world has been watching to see which nations stand up for Ukraine.”

Sino-Russian ties have grown closer over the past year, but China positioned itself this week as a mediator between war-divided Russia and Ukraine rather than a backer of Moscow.

China’s ties with Russia still rank as an “extremely high priority,” said Andrew Small, a senior fellow with the trans-Atlantic cooperation advocacy group German Marshall Fund. The two competed with Washington during the Cold War and have again realigned themselves against the West in recent years.

China probably expected Russia to win quickly in Ukraine, as it has in its past wars, Small said.

“I think the sense that China acted as an enabler for Russia in the runup to this is not something that’s going to go away, and that’s one of the areas where there will be a lot of collateral damage in different ways economically for China and in their relations with other countries in Europe in particular,” he said.

China probably had at least an inkling of Russia’s designs for Ukraine before the Olympics and urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to delay the attack as not to distract from the Games, said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, in Hawaii.

Leaders in Beijing could not easily have influenced Putin’s overall decision whether to invade Ukraine, Vuving added.

“What China could do was to persuade Putin to delay the attack [until] after the Olympics, which Putin did, so I think that was realistic and it indicated a very high level of cooperation between China and Russia,” he said.
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As the train from Lviv limps across the Polish border, children peer from the windows, their curiosity undimmed by the horrors they have left behind. Beside them, crammed tightly into the carriages, their mothers and grandparents sit bewildered, terrified and exhausted.

As the trains pulls into Przemyśl, teams of Polish guards and volunteers help them onto the platform. They are Europe’s newest refugees.

There are only women and children. They leave behind their husbands, their fathers, their sons. The men must stay to fight. The agony of parting is etched in every face.

Their shattered lives have been reduced to a suitcase full of clothes and a few cherished mementos, thrown together in the panicked final hours of escape. Family pets have joined the exodus — cats in plastic cages, dogs straining at the leash.

From Przemyśl, the refugees can change trains to travel across Poland and beyond, free of charge. Dozens of countries have offered free rail travel for Ukrainians fleeing the war. The European Union has given Ukrainians the right to live and work in the bloc for three years.

Anastasia, who did not want to give her family name, fled her home in Kyiv along with her son and daughter. The family is hoping to reach Lithuania.

“We will go on. We will get through it,” she said, fighting back tears. “I hope that everything will end well and that our Ukraine will win. I want to return. I want to go home.”

Every family has a similar story of loss and fear.

More than 1 million Ukrainians have fled the country in the first week of Russia’s invasion, according to the United Nations, with over 500,000 crossing into Poland. A further million are internally displaced within Ukraine. The EU predicts that up to 7 million Ukrainians could leave in the coming weeks.

There is already a large Ukrainian migrant population in Poland, and many refugees can stay with friends or family, which has helped ease the pressure on authorities. Others are housed in shelters set up in schools, hotels and warehouses.

Thousands of foreign nationals are also trying to escape the war. Kaleb Poitier, originally from Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo, was studying electrical engineering in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa. He fled with his Ukrainian girlfriend as the Russian attacks began.

“Every time there was a bombardment, we had to go down to the basement to take refuge. The transport no longer works. The internet is almost cut off. It was very difficult,” Poitier told VOA.

“For one week we slept at the border on the way to get here. Now we’re fine, I can say that in Poland, we’ve been well received so far. We are here to wait to take the bus to go to the other side (of Europe), to other countries, maybe to get to France,” Poitier said.

Volunteers from dozens of countries have come to the Polish border to help, offering food, clothing and shelter. Many hold up cardboard signs offering free car rides to destinations across Europe.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are also fleeing by car or on foot, dragging their few belongings across the border crossing at the Polish village of Medyka.

But it’s not one-way traffic. Many Ukrainians are heading back home to fight. VOA spoke to three former soldiers as they prepared to cross back to their home country from Poland to fight the Russian army.

“It’s a normal reaction,” said Viktor, who did not want to give his full name. “We will beat (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and everything will be fine. We will send Russian tanks and armored vehicles straight to hell.”
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More than 1 million Ukrainians have fled the country in the first week of Russia’s invasion, according to the United Nations. Henry Ridgwell reports from the border between Ukraine and Poland, where most of the refugees are fleeing.
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Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, long friendly with Moscow, took pains Thursday to explain to his ruling party and government why his administration joined dozens of other countries in co-sponsoring this week’s U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We do not support the use of force and readiness to use force or the threatened use of force,” he said in an audio message that also expressed the hope that Russia would “understand” his decision.

He said that Cambodia could not remain silent as Russia countered the Southeast Asian nation’s own policies and “the situation in Ukraine worsens,” according to a transcript of the message released to the public by the office of the spokesperson of the Royal Government of Cambodia on Thursday night.

Hun Sen also said his government was working to address the crisis within the framework of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Cambodia is chair this year.

“We are in discussions with other ASEAN members to issue a statement calling for a cease-fire, because without a cease-fire, human life and property will continue to die and be destroyed, making negotiations impossible,” he said. “We must, therefore, decide to call for a cease-fire, which is desirable for negotiations to find a solution. This is on behalf of ASEAN.”

Hun Sen said that Cambodia needed to act within the framework of Cambodia’s own policies, as well as those of ASEAN.

Nearly 100 countries co-sponsored the resolution, which was introduced in the General Assembly after Russia vetoed a similar motion at the U.N. Security Council last week.

Of the 193 U.N. member states, 181 countries voted on the resolution Wednesday. Among them, 141 countries supported the resolution condemning Moscow. Five countries — Russia and its allies Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea — opposed it. Thirty-five countries abstained, including China, a close ally of Cambodia’s; India; and ASEAN members Vietnam and Laos.

Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, bringing the capital, Kyiv, and other cities under siege. More than 1 million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries, and if the conflict does not end soon, millions more will be forced to flee Ukraine, according to Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees.

Hun Sen, who has been prime minister since 1985, said that many countries were condemning the war in Ukraine, and Cambodia needed to take a clear position. He added that at the request of Japan, France, Germany and the United States, Cambodia decided to co-sponsor the resolution with other countries as a matter of necessity.

Hun Sen added that while he understood the move would anger Russia, Cambodia, as a sovereign state, has the right to act and must “protect the truth.” It also has a responsibility as a U.N. member.

“Hopefully, our Russian friend will understand, because what has been done in the past is contrary to our Cambodian policy on foreign policy, in which we do not support the separation of a state. This is the first point,” Hun Sen said. “Second, we do not support the use of force and readiness to use force or the threatened use of force.”

The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh welcomed the statement. “The United States is pleased to see Cambodia and Singapore join us and other nations in co-sponsoring a resolution deploring Russian aggression and demanding an end to its unprovoked war against Ukraine,” it said.

“The resolution was supported by most ASEAN nations. The world is taking action to hold Russia accountable.”

Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Monday imposed rare unilateral sanctions on Russia, describing the attack on Ukraine as “an unprovoked military invasion of a sovereign state.” Singapore is also an ASEAN member.

The Cambodia National Rescue Party, the exiled opposition party, also condemned the Russian aggression.

“I believe that whenever we see one country invading another, we cannot take a middle position,” CNRP acting President Sam Rainsy told VOA Khmer late Wednesday. “We must condemn the country that invaded” and “help protect” the affected country if possible. 

Sam Rainsy also called on democratic countries to stand up for the protection of democracy. He praised the spirit of the Ukrainian people fighting to protect the freedom and sovereignty of the country.
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“We’re publishing this text while there’s still time,” independent Russian media site Meduza said.

“Within a few days, maybe even today, it is possible that there will be no independent media left in Russia,” read the statement published to Meduza’s website Thursday.

The independent media outlet said that Moscow’s regulator, Roskomnadzor, has ordered journalists to refer to Russia’s invasion as a “special military operation.”

Roskomnadzor has warned more than a dozen media outlets, including VOA’s Russian language website, that they will be fined or blocked unless they remove content Russia deems illegal or that details military information.

VOA Acting Director Yolanda Lopez said Wednesday that the network could not comply with the order, adding, “The Russian people deserve unfettered access to a free press.”

Renowned Russian outlets including Ekho Moskvy closed this week, citing warnings over their coverage of the war, and journalists from Russia and Ukraine have been forced to flee or relocate.

Russian state media have also come under pressure, with the EU banning broadcasts and RT America announcing Thursday that it would cease operations in the U.S.

Two prominent Russian independent outlets were forced off the air this week, and access to RFE/RL’s Current Time and Crimea.Realities was blocked.

The board of iconic liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy on Thursday voted to liquidate the station and website.

Ekho Moskvy was taken off the airwaves Tuesday along with Dozhd TV after they failed to comply with orders from the regulator over their coverage.

In its decision, the prosecutor cited the station’s sharing “of information calling for extremist activities, violence and deliberately false information about the actions of Russian forces as part of a special operation” in Ukraine.

Editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov told Reuters at the time, “Our editorial policies won’t change.”

Several staff members from Dozhd TV have left Russia, citing censorship and safety concerns.

With access to the website blocked and reports of harassment, “it is obvious that the personal safety of some of us is under threat,” Editor-in-chief Tikhon Dzyadko told reporters.

“No matter how black and nasty it is now, and no matter how happy some are with our decision, we will still win. This is inevitable, because the truth ultimately wins,” he added.

International reaction

The U.S. and the European Union have condemned Russian censorship over coverage of its war in Ukraine.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Thursday that Moscow “is engaged in a full assault on media freedom and the truth.”

Psaki cited the media regulator threats to Ekho Moskvy, Dozhd and VOA’s Russian Service, bans on terms used to describe the war, and restrictions on social media platforms.

“What they are trying to do is block any information about what they are doing to invade a sovereign country, and they’re taking severe steps to do exactly that,” she said.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said late Wednesday that Russia’s efforts to “mislead and suppress the truth” about the country’s invasion of Ukraine were intensifying, and that the Russian people deserved to know the truth about what’s happening.

U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told VOA that Moscow’s “manipulation and censorship of the media is appalling.”

“The Russian people deserve access to the truth about Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression and instead are being fed lies by the Putin regime,” said McCaul. “The U.S. must continue to robustly support independent media to counter Russian propaganda and disinformation.”

The EU has also condemned censorship and disinformation. Member states on Wednesday voted to block transmissions of Russian-backed state media, including Sputnik and RT.

RT America on Thursday announced it would cease operations immediately, citing moves by providers that dropped its broadcasts this week.

Broadcaster Holland Cooke, who hosted a weekly show on RT America, said on a news website that management called a meeting Thursday and announced the U.S. division would cease operations because of condemnation over Russia’s invasion in Ukraine.

A memo sent to staff said production would stop “due to unforeseen business interruption events,” CNN reported.

Media support

Moscow’s independent journalists are standing in solidarity with their colleagues. More than 200 signed an open letter protesting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Novaya Gazeta, the renowned Russian outlet run by Nobel Peace laureate Dmitry Muratov, on Tuesday said it would offer space to Ekho Moskvy and other media on its site.

Across Europe, media are also offering help and assistance to journalists forced to flee.

Kosovo on Wednesday allocated 150,000 euros or $165,000 toward six months of living costs, wages and shelter for up to 20 Ukrainian journalists.

Priority will be given to female reporters recommended by the European Federation of Journalists and European Center for Press and Media Freedom, Reuters reported.

The London-based media trade magazine The Fix, which focuses on media in Europe, has also offered practical support, setting up partnerships with newsrooms to provide tech and relocation support, and regional hubs so journalists can keep reporting.

“In peaceful times, The Fix is a trade publication and knowledge hub that covers media management in Europe,” Zakhar Protsiuk, the outlet’s managing editor, told VOA via email. “[But] in the first hours of the Russian invasion, we reorganized our work to support Ukrainian media.”

The Fix, which has strong Ukrainian ties, said it was connecting European outlets such as the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, Germany’s Axel Springer and others with journalists in need of equipment and support in Ukraine or help setting up hubs across Europe so they can keep publishing.

Protsiuk said they were working with independent media in Ukraine and partners in a nongovernmental organization, the Media Development Foundation.

“The Fix team has a lot of experience in working in difficult environments,” Protsiuk said. “My colleagues have been providing help for media working in eastern Ukraine; we are working with many Belarus independent media who had to flee the country.”

Members of the Council of Europe Platform to Promote Journalist Safety released a joint statement to demand the safety of news crews.

“We emphasize that journalists are considered civilians under international humanitarian law and are not legitimate targets,” the statement said.

The platform called for “urgent and practical international assistance and support” for those covering the conflict, saying independent news is essential in conflict situations.

“Their work helps keep people safe and ensures that the international community can understand the full consequences of this invasion and its appalling impact on human lives,” the statement added.
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It’s unclear if Russian President Vladimir Putin expected the sanctions that followed his invasion of Ukraine. But their severity could have far-reaching economic consequences for Russia. Oksana Bedratenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Following moves by tech companies and the EU to reduce the visibility of Russian state media site RT, the network says it will begin streaming its content on a YouTube-like platform called Rumble.

“RT gets ready to… Rumble: After a multitude of platforms have moved to knock out our broadcast and limit social media…,” RT wrote in a Thursday tweet.

According to a statement on the Rumble website, the company “was built on the belief that all creators should have the opportunity to freely express themselves and reach their followers without censorship or restrictions.”

As of Thursday, the RT livestream in English was still functioning on YouTube in the United States.

On February 27, the European Union announced it was “banning Russia Today and Sputnik from broadcasting in the Union.” YouTube reportedly also blocked RT in the EU.

Twitter announced Monday that it will start labeling and making it harder for users to see tweets about the invasion of Ukraine that contain information from Russian state media like RT and Sputnik.

Facebook has similar measures.

A popular streaming service called Roku removed the RT channel from its channel store in Europe, Reuters reported.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.
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The United Nations’ high commissioner for refugees said Thursday that one million people have fled Ukraine in the past week alone, one of the fastest and largest mass exoduses of people in conflict situations in decades.  

“Hour by hour, minute by minute, more people are fleeing the terrifying reality of violence. Countless have been displaced inside the country,” Filippo Grandi said in a statement. “And unless there is an immediate end to the conflict, millions more are likely to be forced to flee Ukraine.”

Intensification of the Russian offensive has seen multiple cities across the country come under air and ground attack in the past week. Russian tanks and armored vehicles are continuing to roll through the country threatening several large cities.

Grandi told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that he had not seen “such an incredibly fast-rising exodus of people – the largest, surely, within Europe, since the Balkan wars.”

He said unless there is an immediate halt to the conflict, people will continue to flee.

“We are currently planning – repeat: planning – for up to four million refugees in the coming days and weeks,” Grandi said Monday.

When he briefed the council on Monday, he said more than 280,000 people had fled to Poland alone. As of Wednesday, UNHCR said the number had nearly doubled to 547,982 people.

Numbers of refugees are also rising quickly in Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia, Romania and other European countries. Nearly 50,000 people, primarily from eastern Ukraine, have also sought refuge in Russia.

The U.N. Children’s agency, UNICEF, says half of those fleeing the country are children.

The U.N. appealed Tuesday for $1.7 billion to meet emergency needs inside and in neighboring countries for the next three months. Nations stepped up immediately with $1.5 billion in pledges. UNHCR hopes to assist 2.4 million refugees and asylum-seekers with money from the appeal.

The United States announced $54 million in new humanitarian funding last week for Ukrainians.  

“They are fleeing increasingly violent and widespread strikes by Russian forces against residential areas and infrastructure – from the shelling of hospitals and kindergartens to rockets targeting central city squares,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement. “The human toll of Russia’s unprovoked and unjustifiable attack against its sovereign neighbor is growing exponentially each day.”
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Ekho Moskvy radio station, one of Russia’s last remaining liberal media outlets, has been dissolved by its board after coming under pressure over its coverage of the war in Ukraine, its editor said on Thursday.

The station, one of the leading news and current affairs channels in Russia, had been taken off the air on Tuesday though it appeared still to be broadcasting on YouTube after the board’s decision was announced.

Ekho Moskvy’s disappearance from the airwaves dealt another blow to independent media in Russia after years of intensifying pressure from the authorities.

“The Ekho Moskvy board of directors has decided by a majority of votes to liquidate the radio channel and the website of Ekho Moskvy,” Editor-in-Chief Alexei Venediktov said on the messaging app Telegram.

Venediktov told Reuters this week that the station would not abandon the independent editorial line that has been its hallmark for three decades, declaring: “Our editorial policies won’t change.”

The board’s decision came after the prosecutor general’s office demanded this week that access be restricted to Ekho Moskvy and the TV Rain online news channel over their coverage of the conflict.

The prosecutor said its move was prompted by their websites’ “targeted and systematic posting … of information calling for extremist activities, violence and deliberately false information about the actions of Russian forces as part of a special operation” in Ukraine.

Russia rejects the term invasion, and says its actions are not designed to occupy territory but to destroy Ukraine’s military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists — a pretext rejected by Ukraine and the West as baseless propaganda.

Ekho Moskvy said on Tuesday that the accusations against it were baseless and offensive, and it would fight them in the courts.

Pressure on journalists

Russian journalists have faced an increasingly difficult environment in recent years, with many being designated by the authorities as “foreign agents,” a status that snares them in official paperwork and exposes them to public contempt.

Pressure has mounted since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week, with most mainstream media outlets and state-controlled organizations sticking closely to language used by the Kremlin to describe the war.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment directly on the situation at Ekho Moskvy, saying the decision to close had been taken by its board of directors.

“The radio station violated the law. The right of the prosecutor general’s office to take appropriate measures was used,” he told a briefing.

Asked if Ekho Moskvy could resume operations in the future, Peskov said that was up to the station’s owners.
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Russian and Belarusian athletes were barred on Thursday from the Winter Paralympics in Beijing on the eve of the Games following threats of boycotts by other teams over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said.

Belarus has been a key staging area for the invasion, which was launched a week ago.

The decision comes a day after the IPC gave athletes from the two countries the green light to participate as neutrals, saying that the governing body had followed its rules and that “athletes were not the aggressors.”

But that decision led to an outcry and threats from other countries’ National Paralympic Committees (NPC) to boycott the Games, IPC President Andrew Parsons told a news conference in Beijing.

“They told us that if we do not reconsider our decision, it is now likely to have grave consequences for the Winter Games,” Parsons said.

“Multiple NPCs, some of which have been contacted by their governments, teams and athletes, are threatening not to compete.”

Parsons said it was clear the situation put his organization in a “unique and impossible position” so close to the start of the Games, adding that an overwhelming number of members had been in touch and been forthright in their objections to Russia and Belarus taking part.

A 71-member Russian contingent and 12-member team from Belarus are already in Beijing for the Games, which begin on Friday.

Parsons said the Russian and Belarusian athletes were victims of the actions of their governments.

“Athlete welfare will always be a priority for us,” he said.

“If Russian and Belarusian athletes stayed in Beijing, nations were likely to withdraw, and a viable Games would not have been possible.

“The atmosphere in the Games village is not pleasant. The situation there is escalating and has now become untenable … The Games are not only about gold, silver and bronze, but also about sending a strong message of inclusion.”

Parsons said the IPC was likely to face legal consequences but was confident that the right decision had been made.

The IPC said earlier in a statement that following a specially convened meeting, its Governing Board has decided not to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to take part.
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Ukraine marked one week since Russia invaded the country Thursday, as Russian forces shelled major cities and the number of refugees who have fled Ukraine exceeded 1 million people.

Despite Russian assaults on Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Thursday they all remained in Ukrainian hands.  Unclear was the status of Kherson, with Russian troops present in the city amid disputed claims of who was in control.

“We are a people who in a week have destroyed the plans of the enemy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address early Thursday. “They will have no peace here. They will have no food. They will have here not one quiet moment.”

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov cited expectations ahead of the invasion that Russia would quickly overtake Ukraine, writing on Facebook, “No one, neither in Russia nor in the West, believed that we would last a week.”  He added that while there are challenges ahead, Ukraine has “every reason to be confident.”

Thursday also brought the expectation of a second round of peace talks between the two sides, though there has been little sign of a potential breakthrough.  An initial meeting Monday yielded only plans for further talks.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States remains open to finding a diplomatic solution to the situation, but that Russia must first de-escalate.

“It’s much more difficult for diplomacy to succeed when guns are firing and tanks are rolling,” he told reporters Wednesday.

Blinken is traveling to Europe on Thursday for a series of meetings with NATO and other allies about their response to the Russian invasion.  NATO foreign ministers are holding an extraordinary meeting Friday in Brussels, and on Saturday Blinken travels on to Poland to discuss further security and humanitarian assistance to help refugees who have fled Ukraine.

Poland has taken in half of the more than 1 million refugees who have fled Ukraine in the past week, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.  The U.N. body has said it expects 4 million people could leave Ukraine due to the conflict.

Ukraine’s emergency agency said Wednesday Russia’s attacks have killed more than 2,000 people across the country.

Russia’s Defense Ministry put out its first casualties report, saying 498 of its troops were killed in Ukraine, while more than 1,500 others were wounded.

A senior U.S. defense official told reporters Wednesday Russian forces trying to take the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, were “stalled outside the city center.”

The forces, including a massive Russian convoy, have made “no appreciable movement,” the official said, adding Russian advances on other key cities, such as Chernihiv and Kharkiv had also stalled.

Meanwhile, shipments of defensive aid for Ukraine continued to arrive, according to U.S. officials.

The Pentagon on Wednesday also expressed concerns that Russian forces are getting more aggressive in their targeting, putting civilians and civilian infrastructure in greater danger.

The senior defense official said the U.S. believes that since the invasion began last Thursday, Russia has launched more than 450 missiles, but that Ukraine’s air and missile defense systems remain viable. 

The official said the lack of Russian progress around Kyiv, despite its superior firepower, could be attributed to factors including shortages of fuel and food, and a spirited defense by Ukrainian forces.

“It has slowed because of resistance from the Ukrainians that has been effective and quite creative,” the official said. “They have marshaled their assets quite well. … The will to fight is very strong, in terms of their armed forces but also in terms of their civilian population.”

“We also believe they [Russia] have had morale problems that has led to less than effective operational success,” the official added, cautioning that U.S. intelligence expects Russian forces will adapt in order to continue with the massive assault.

The Pentagon also announced that it is postponing a nuclear missile test launch scheduled for this week. The decision comes days after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to put his nuclear forces on higher alert.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the decision to delay the test of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile was made by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Kirby added that the United States would like to see Moscow reciprocate by “taking the temperature down” in the crisis over Ukraine.

Another factor that may be helping the Ukrainians is continued support from NATO and the United States.

Blinken said Wednesday the United States is imposing sweeping sanctions on Russia’s defense sector.

“In total, 22 Russian defense-related entities will be designated, including companies that make combat aircraft, infantry fighting vehicles, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare systems – the very systems now being used to assault the Ukrainian people, abuse human rights, violate international humanitarian law,” Blinken said during a news conference.

Blinken said the United States would also “choke off Belarus’ ability to import key technologies” by imposing export controls on Belarus “to hold the Lukashenka regime accountable for being a co-belligerent in President [Vladimir] Putin’s war of choice.”

VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching, national security correspondent Jeff Seldin, Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, correspondent Jamie Dettmer, Islamabad Bureau Chief Heather Murdock and White House correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press,  Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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One week into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces continue their push despite condemnation from the United Nations General Assembly, which voted overwhelmingly to reprimand Russia for invading Ukraine. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the latest.
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Full developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine   
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Moscow’s media regulator threatened on Wednesday to block access to VOA’s Russian news network.

In a notice sent to VOA, the regulator Roskomnadzor said that the network’s Russian-language site had 24 hours to remove content that Moscow deems “illegal” or be blocked.

In another sign of the importance all sides attach to how the war is reported to their publics, the European Union announced Wednesday a ban on broadcasts and websites affiliated with Russian state-funded media outlets RT and Sputnik for spreading disinformation.

VOA Acting Director Yolanda Lopez said the network was aware of the media regulator’s order but could not comply.

“This kind of accurate, credible journalism is the reason why our audience in Russia engages with VOA. We find any attempts to interfere with the free flow of information deeply troubling and consider this order in direct opposition to the values of all democratic societies,” Lopez said in a statement.

“The Russian people deserve unfettered access to a free press and, therefore, we cannot comply with the Roskomnadzor’s request,” she added.

The VOA news website is one of a dozen media outlets to be blocked or threatened with fines by Roskomnadzor since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Most warnings relate to content that Moscow deems to be false or that gives information about troops and casualties.

Current Time, a daily news show produced by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, in partnership with VOA, and RFE/RL’s Crimea.Realities were blocked on Sunday.

RFE/RL and VOA are independent, taxpayer-funded networks under the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

On Tuesday, Roskomnadzor removed the independent broadcasters TV Dozhd and Ekho Moskvy from the airwaves.

Ekho Moskvy’s chief editor, Alexei Venediktov, said the station would contest the regulator’s decision in court, The Associated Press reported.

“We see a political component in it, as well as the introduction of censorship, which is directly prohibited by the Russian Constitution,” Venediktov said.

The regulator’s warning to VOA came on the same day that the European Union said it would ban Russian state media including Sputnik and RT. EU operators will be banned from broadcasting, facilitating or otherwise contributing to the dissemination of content from Sputnik and RT.

“Systematic information manipulation and disinformation by the Kremlin is applied as an operational tool in its assault on Ukraine,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

Social media platforms including Facebook and YouTube said they would comply with the ban.

Roskomnadzor on Wednesday appealed to Facebook’s parent company, Meta, to lift restrictions on the Rossiya Segodnya group that oversees Sputnik and RT.

In a statement, the regulator said the restrictions prevented internet users from accessing “independent sources and aim to create distorted perception of the events.”

Media solidarity

The international community and media watchdogs have condemned attempts by Russia’s media regulator to censor or restrict independent reporting on the war in Ukraine.

On Sunday, Teresa Ribeiro, media freedom representative for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, called on Russia to “safeguard the free flow of information and media freedom in line with OSCE commitments and international obligations.”

The Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) described Roskomnadzor’s actions against Ekho Moskvy and Dozhd TV as concerning, saying their “news and information services have been essential for Russian citizens.”

“The AIB stands in solidarity with all journalists and media colleagues who are bringing essential news and information from Ukraine to audiences in the country and around the world,” AIB Chief Executive Simon Spanswick told VOA via email. “It is essential that they are allowed to work unhindered and without threat to them and their families.”

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also decried Moscow’s attempts to block news.

“Russian authorities’ restricting of social media platforms and independent media outlets is clear censorship and undermines the free flow of information,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said Tuesday.

VOA’s Russian-language service is a 24/7 TV and digital news network aimed audiences in Russia, where access to independent news is limited.
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