Foreign news
Russia bombed a TV tower in Ukraine's capital on Tuesday and rained rockets on the city of Kharkiv as Moscow intensified its bombardment of Ukrainian urban areas in a shift of tactics after its six-day invasion stalled.
A U.S. official said a miles-long armoured column bearing down on the capital Kyiv had not made any advances in the past 24 hours, frozen in place by logistics problems, short on fuel and food, and perhaps pausing to reassess tactics.
Russia's defence ministry urged Kyiv residents to flee and said it would strike unspecified areas used by Ukraine's security services and communications.
Speaking in a heavily guarded government compound in Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia must "first stop bombing people" before peace talks could make any headway.
In a joint interview with Reuters and CNN, Zelenskiy also urged NATO members to impose a no-fly zone to stop Russia's airforce, something the military alliance has ruled out.
As Zelenskiy, unshaven and wearing simple khaki clothes, spoke, news came that a Russian missile had struck a TV tower near the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial site in Kyiv, killing at least five people.
Zelenskiy, who also spoke by phone for 30 minutes with U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday, said the artillery barrages on the eastern city of Kharkiv amounted to "state terrorism".
Biden and Zelenskiy discussed how Russia had intensified attacks on sites used by civilians, the White House said. The U.S. president is expected to highlight Western unity over Ukraine in his State of the Union address later on Tuesday.
'SHAMBOLIC'
President Vladimir Putin has drawn global condemnation and sanctions that have already sent the rouble into freefall and forced Russians to queue outside banks for their savings.
The West has imposed heavy sanctions on Russia to shut off its economy from the global financial system, pushing international companies to halt sales, cut ties, and dump tens of billions of dollars' worth of investments.
But nearly a week since Russian troops poured over the border, they have not captured a single major Ukrainian city after running into far fiercer resistance than they expected.
"Looking at the Russian operation so far, they're having tremendous problems with logistics and communications. The whole effort seems shambolic," Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at Washington's Wilson Center, wrote in a tweet.
Many Western military analysts fear that Russia will now fall back on tactics which call for crushing bombardment of built-up areas before trying to enter them.
A senior U.S. defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said:
"One reason why things appear to be stalled north of Kyiv is that the Russians themselves are regrouping and rethinking and trying to adjust to the challenges that they've had."
The Russians have been surprised not only by the scale of Ukrainian resistance but also by poor morale among their own forces, some of whom surrendered without a fight, the official said, without providing evidence.
Russia still has more forces to throw into the fight, though.
Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the "special military operation" would continue until it had achieved its goals, defined by Putin as disarming Ukraine and capturing the "neo-Nazis" he says are running the country.
Rocket strikes on Tuesday in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second biggest city, killed at least 10 people and wounded 35, Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said.
Human rights groups and Ukraine's ambassador to the United States have accused Russia of using cluster bombs and vacuum bombs, weapons condemned by many organizations. Moscow denies targeting civilians.
Munitions experts who reviewed footage on social media of attacks on Monday said Kharkiv appeared to have been targeted by cluster bombs.
High-rise buildings, schools, and kindergartens were among the buildings destroyed in those strikes, Interfax Ukraine reported, citing Ukraine's defence ministry.
In the south, Russia claimed to have completely encircled Ukraine's Azov Sea coast. If confirmed, that would mean Russian forces invading from Crimea had joined up with separatists in the east and had cut off Ukraine's main eastern port, Mariupol.
Zelenskiy said Kyiv remained the main target. Some Kyiv residents have been sheltering in underground metro stations at night, there are long lines for fuel, and some products are running out in shops.
APPEAL TO EUROPE
In an emotional address to the European Parliament by video link on Tuesday, a day after he signed an official request to join the European Union, Zelenskiy urged the bloc to prove that it sided with Ukraine.
"Do prove that you will not let us go. Do prove that you are indeed Europeans and then life will win over death and light will win over darkness," he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a Geneva disarmament meeting via video link that Ukraine had been seeking nuclear weapons. He did not provide evidence other than saying "Ukraine still has Soviet nuclear technologies and the means of delivery of such weapons."
More than 100 diplomats walked out of the hall in protest as his speech began, underlining Russia's international isolation.
Ukraine's general staff said Russian losses included 5,710 personnel, 29 destroyed and damaged aircraft and 198 tanks, all figures that could not be verified. Russia has given no full account of its battlefield losses.
'I SAW WAR'
Moscow announced a ban on foreign companies selling assets to try to halt the flight of Western companies abandoning their Russian ties. Putin also issued a decree banning cash exports of foreign currency from Russia exceeding $10,000 in value.
The rouble hit a record low on Tuesday, threatening the living standards of ordinary Russians.
Most effective among the sanctions so far have been those on Russia's central bank that prevent it from using its $630 billion foreign reserve war chest to prop up the rouble.
With energy prices soaring, the U.S. and its allies agreed Tuesday to release oil reserves as buyers avoid Russian suppliers.
More than 660,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries such as Poland and Romania since the invasion began, the U.N. refugee agency said.
At the Hungarian border crossing Tiszabecs, a mother cradled a baby in her arms after a four-day drive from Kyiv.
"I saw war, I saw rockets," said her older son Ivan, 15, who looked exhausted after the journey. His father had stayed behind to fight.
Reuters
Presidents of eight central and eastern European nations on Monday called on European Union member states to immediately grant Ukraine a EU candidate country status and open membership talks according to an open letter published on Monday.
The letter reads,"We, the Presidents of the EU member states: the Republic of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Poland, the Slovak Republic, and the Republic of Slovenia strongly believe that Ukraine deserves receiving an immediate EU accession perspective,".
Reuters
Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s second-largest city on Monday, rocking a residential neighborhood, and closed in on the capital, Kyiv, in a 40-mile convoy of hundreds of tanks and other vehicles, as talks aimed at stopping the fighting yielded only an agreement to keep talking.
The country’s embattled president said the stepped-up shelling was aimed at forcing him into concessions.
“I believe Russia is trying to put pressure (on Ukraine) with this simple method,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday in a video address. He did not offer details of the hourslong talks that took place earlier, but said that Kyiv was not prepared to make concessions “when one side is hitting each other with rocket artillery.”
Amid ever-growing international condemnation, Russia found itself increasingly isolated five days into its invasion, while also facing unexpectedly fierce resistance on the ground in Ukraine and economic havoc at home.
For the second day in a row, the Kremlin raised the specter of nuclear war, announcing that its nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and long-range bombers had all been put on high alert, following President Vladimir Putin’s orders over the weekend.
Stepping up his rhetoric, Putin denounced the U.S. and its allies as an “empire of lies.”
Meanwhile, an embattled Ukraine moved to solidify its ties to the West by applying to join the European Union — a largely symbolic move for now, but one that is unlikely to sit well with Putin, who has long accused the U.S. of trying to pull Ukraine out of Moscow’s orbit.
A top Putin aide and head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said that the first talks held between the two sides since the invasion lasted nearly five hours and that the envoys “found certain points on which common positions could be foreseen.” He said they agreed to continue the discussions in the coming days.
As the talks along the Belarusian border wrapped up, several blasts could be heard in Kyiv, and Russian troops advanced on the city of nearly 3 million. The vast convoy of armored vehicles, tanks, artillery and support vehicles was 17 miles (25 kilometers) from the center of the city and stretched for about 40 miles, according to satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies.
The Maxar photos also showed deployments of ground forces and ground attack helicopter units in southern Belarus.
People in Kyiv lined up for groceries after the end of a weekend curfew, standing beneath a building with a gaping hole blown in its side. Kyiv remained “a key goal” for the Russians, Zelenskyy said, noting that it was hit by three missile strikes on Monday and that hundreds of saboteurs were roaming the city.
“They want to break our nationhood, that’s why the capital is constantly under threat,” Zelenskyy said.
Messages aimed at the advancing Russian soldiers popped up on billboards, bus stops and electronic traffic signs across the capital. Some used profanity to encourage Russians to leave. Others appealed to their humanity.
“Russian soldier — Stop! Remember your family. Go home with a clean conscience,” one read.
Video from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, with a population of about 1.5 million, showed residential areas being shelled, with apartment buildings shaken by repeated, powerful blasts. Flashes of fire and gray plumes of smoke could be seen.
Footage released by the government from Kharkiv depicted what appeared to be a home with water gushing from a pierced ceiling. What looked like an undetonated projectile was on the floor.
Authorities in Kharkiv said at least seven people had been killed and dozens injured. They warned that casualties could be far higher.
“They wanted to have a blitzkrieg, but it failed, so they act this way,” said 83-year-old Valentin Petrovich, who watched the shelling from his downtown apartment and gave just his first name and his patronymic, a middle name derived from his father’s name, out of fear for his safety.
The Russian military has denied targeting residential areas despite abundant evidence of shelling of homes, schools and hospitals.
Fighting raged in other towns and cities across the country. The strategic port city of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, is “hanging on,” said Zelenskyy adviser Oleksiy Arestovich. An oil depot was reported bombed in the eastern city of Sumy.
Despite its vast military strength, Russia still lacked control of Ukrainian airspace, a surprise that may help explain how Ukraine has so far prevented a rout.
In the seaside resort town of Berdyansk, dozens of protesters chanted angrily in the main square against Russian occupiers, yelling at them to go home and singing the Ukrainian national anthem. They described the soldiers as exhausted young conscripts.
“Frightened kids, frightened looks. They want to eat,” Konstantin Maloletka, who runs a small shop, said by telephone. He said the soldiers went into a supermarket and grabbed canned meat, vodka and cigarettes.
“They ate right in the store,” he said. “It looked like they haven’t been fed in recent days.”
Across Ukraine, terrified families huddled overnight in shelters, basements or corridors.
“I sit and pray for these negotiations to end successfully, so that they reach an agreement to end the slaughter,” said Alexandra Mikhailova, weeping as she clutched her cat in a shelter in Mariupol. Around her, parents tried to console children and keep them warm.
For many, Russia’s announcement of a nuclear high alert stirred fears that the West could be drawn into direct conflict with Russia. But a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States had yet to see any appreciable change in Russia’s nuclear posture.
As far-reaching Western sanctions on Russian banks and other institutions took hold, the ruble plummeted, and Russia’s Central Bank scrambled to shore it up, as did Putin, signing a decree restricting foreign currency.
But that did little to calm Russian fears. In Moscow, people lined up to withdraw cash as the sanctions threatened to drive up prices and reduce the standard of living for millions of ordinary Russians.
In yet another blow to Russia’s economy, oil giant Shell said it is pulling out of the country because of the invasion. It announced it will withdraw from its joint ventures with state-owned gas company Gazprom and other entities and end its involvement in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project between Russia and Europe.
The economic sanctions, ordered by the U.S. and other allies, were just one contributor to Russia’s growing status as a pariah country.
Russian airliners are banned from European airspace, Russian media is restricted in some countries, and some high-tech products can no longer be exported to the country. On Monday, in a major blow to a soccer-mad nation, Russian teams were suspended from all international soccer.
In other developments:
— The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said he will open an investigation soon into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
— Cyberattacks hit Ukrainian embassies around the world, and Russian media outlets.
— The United States announced it is expelling 12 members of Russia’s U.N. mission, accusing them of spying.
— The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly opened its first emergency session in decades, with Assembly President Abdulla Shahid calling for an immediate cease-fire and “a full return to diplomacy and dialogue.”
The U.N. human rights chief said at least 102 civilians have been killed and hundreds wounded — warning that figure is probably a vast undercount — and Ukraine’s president said at least 16 children were among the dead.
More than a half-million people have fled the country since the invasion, another U.N. official said, many of them going to Poland, Romania and Hungary.
Among the refugees in Hungary was Maria Pavlushko, 24, an information technology project manager from a city west of Kyiv. She said her father stayed behind to fight the Russians.
“I am proud about him,” she said, adding that many of her friends were planning to fight too.
The negotiators at Monday’s talks met at a long table with the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag on one side and the Russian tricolor on the other.
But while Ukraine sent its defense minister and other top officials, the Russian delegation was led by Putin’s adviser on culture — an unlikely envoy for ending a war and perhaps a sign of how seriously Moscow took the talks.
AP
In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait in a naked war of territorial aggression. The next year, the US and an allied coalition intervened under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, repulsing the Iraqi invasion. Today, as Russia is engaged in a similar aggressive war against Ukraine, there is no similar American effort in the offing — even as Ukrainian leaders have pleaded for Western assistance.
There are many dissimilarities between the situations in 1991 and 2022, but the biggest one is this: Saddam Hussein, rather famously, did not have nuclear weapons. Vladimir Putin has approximately 6,000 of them. And that makes all the difference.
Both before the invasion and afterward, the Biden administration has consistently ruled out the deployment of US troops. “Let me say it again: Our forces are not — and will not — be engaged in the conflict with Russia in Ukraine,” the president said in a Thursday address. Despite the warnings of American involvement from commentators on the Trumpist right and “anti-imperialist” left, there are no signs of this policy changing. Nuclear weapons are the chief reason why.
The logic of mutually assured destruction that defined the Cold War still works, to some degree: Russia’s arsenal makes any direct intervention in Ukraine riskier than any rational American leader could tolerate. In a sense, then, Russia’s nuclear weapons make it less likely that the conflict will kick off World War III.
But in another sense, Russia’s nuclear arsenal also helped create the conditions where Putin’s invasion could happen in the first place.
Political scientists call this the “stability-instability paradox,” the notion that nuclear deterrence has had the paradoxical effect of making certain kinds of conventional warfare more likely. Russia can be relatively confident that the United States and its allies won’t come to Ukraine’s defense directly, because such a clash carries the threat of nuclear war. This could make Putin more confident that his invasion could succeed.
Putin himself has suggested as much. In his speech declaring war on Wednesday night, he warned that “anyone who would consider interfering from the outside” will “face consequences greater than any you have faced in history” — a thinly veiled threat to nuke the United States or its NATO allies if they dare intervene.
“This is about the clearest evidence I have ever seen for the stability-instability paradox,” Caitlin Talmadge, a professor at Georgetown University who studies nuclear weapons, writes of Putin’s speech. “Putin’s behavior suggests that revisionist actors [can] use their strategic nuclear forces as a shield behind which they can pursue conventional aggression, knowing their nuclear threats may deter outside intervention.”
The nuclear balance between the United States and Russia, one of the Cold War’s defining features, is coming back to the forefront of international politics. We can only hope that things don’t get scarier from here.
How nuclear weapons make US involvement in Ukraine unthinkable.
Nuclear weapons are the only weapons humanity has yet devised that, deployed at scale, could swiftly wipe out our entire species. The risks of conflict between two nuclear-armed powers are so great that virtually any rational leader should, in theory, seek to avoid one.
This is especially true of the United States and Russia, who together control an estimated 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads. The issue is not merely the size of their arsenals but also their structure — both countries have robust “second strike” capabilities, meaning each can sustain a devastating nuclear first strike from the other side and still retaliate. The US and Russia maintain second strike capabilities in part through the so-called “nuclear triad”: bombers armed with nuclear bombs, submarines equipped with nuclear missiles, and land-based missile launchers.
The result is that neither the US nor Russia can hope to “win” a nuclear war. Even if one nation struck first, decimating major military bases and population centers, the other would still be able to launch a devastating nuclear counterattack on their enemy’s homeland from (for example) submarines out to sea. The only way to win is not to play.
This appears to be the reason the Biden administration has been so adamant on avoiding any kind of involvement in Ukraine; the risks of any direct intervention are far too high.
Conventional warfare between nuclear powers does not necessarily escalate to nuclear conflict: see the 1999 Kargill conflict between India and Pakistan, the 2018 battle between US special forces and Russian mercenaries in Syria, or the recent border clashes between India and China. But the risk of such a conflict escalating to nuclear use is always there, especially if one side believes that vital national interests or its very survival is at stake.
For Putin, the Ukraine war seems to fit the bill. A significant US or NATO intervention in the conflict would, by sheer fact of geography, pose a threat to the territorial integrity of the Russian homeland. Were it to turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favor, Russia could very conceivably use its nuclear arsenal against its NATO enemies.
“Their nuclear strategy envisions possible first use if they are losing a conventional conflict or facing an existential threat,” Nick Miller, an expert on nuclear weapons at Dartmouth University, explains.
We have no guarantee that deploying US troops to Ukraine would, in fact, lead to nuclear warfare. But the risks would be high, very likely exceeding the most dangerous moments of the Cold War, like the Cuban missile crisis. There are scenarios where you could imagine an American leader launching a conflict with a nuclear power — if it was necessary to protect the US homeland, for example — but defending Ukraine, which isn’t even a formal US ally, simply isn’t one of them.
How nuclear weapons helped make the Ukraine war possible — and could make it much worse
Some leading scholars look at the logic of deterrence and conclude that nuclear weapons are actually a good thing for the world. This “nuclear revolution” theory, most commonly associated with the late political scientist Kenneth Waltz, holds that the spread of nuclear weapons will spread peace by expanding deterrence. The more countries can make aggression unthinkably risky, the less likely war will become.
The evidence for this theory is spotty. While nuclear deterrence does seem to have played a role in preventing the Cold War from turning hot, examining other cases — including smaller nuclear armed states like India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea — leads to a much more complicated picture.
The stability-instability paradox is one of these complications. In its most classic form, the paradox argues that two countries with nuclear weapons can be morelikely to engage in small-scale conflict. Because each side knows that the other doesn’t want to risk a wider war given nuclear risks, they can feel more confident engaging in smaller provocations and assaults. What looks like nuclear stability actually breeds conventional instability.
Ukraine is not a nuclear state, but the NATO alliance has three of them (the US, Britain, and France). Because NATO states don’t want a wider war with Russia, one that carries a risk of a nuclear exchange, they’re less likely to intervene in a conflict they might otherwise join. Putin knows this; his public threat to use nukes against any intervening country suggests he’s counting on it.
So what we’re seeing is a kind of twist on the classic paradox: Putin is relying on nuclear fear to allow him to get away with invading a country (Ukraine) that a nuclear-armed third party (NATO) might otherwise want to defend.
This dynamic is familiar from the Cold War; it’s in part why the Soviets could send troops to Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to suppress popular anti-communist uprisings without real fear of Western intervention.
To be clear, the stability-instability paradox is not an ironclad law of international relations; scholars disagree about exactly how frequently it actually causes conflict. But neither is nuclear deterrence: There are several near-miss examples where a nuclear exchange was just barely avoided.
In 1983, for example, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov was alerted by an early warning system that a US nuclear strike was likely incoming. Had Petrov informed his superiors of that message, it’s very likely they would have launched missiles in response. Yet Petrov and his staff correctly concluded this was a false alarm and chose to say nothing — potentially saving hundreds of millions, if not billions, of lives.
Nuclear deterrence depends on both sides having good information and making rational decisions. But in a conflict like the one we’re seeing in Ukraine, taking place near the borders of NATO members, the risks of accidents, misperceptions, and miscalculations inches incrementally higher. For example, says Miller, “you can imagine a Russian jet straying into NATO airspace accidentally” and sparking a wider conflict.
Without a NATO presence inside Ukraine, the risks of such a disaster remain extremely low; Miller cautions that “both sides have a strong incentive to avoid direct conflict and avoid minor incidents escalating.”
But the fact that we’re even talking about it illustrates how nuclear weapons, by their very nature, make the world a riskier place. While they likely are playing a major role in keeping the US out of the Ukraine conflict directly, they helped create the conditions where Russia could launch the war in the first place — and, in the very worst case, could escalate to complete disaster.
Vox
Ukrainian forces put up fierce resistance to slow the advance of the larger and more powerful Russian military closing in on the capital, as the U.S. and EU rushed ammunition and weapons to Kyiv and announced powerful new financial sanctions aimed at further isolating Moscow.
Terrified men, women and children sought safety inside and underground, and the government maintained a 39-hour curfew to keep people off the streets. More than 150,000 Ukrainians fled for Poland, Moldova and other neighboring countries, and the United Nations warned the number could grow to 4 million if fighting escalates.
Huge explosions lit up the predawn sky south of Kyiv early Sunday. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said one of the blasts was near the Zhuliany airport, and the mayor of Vasylkiv, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of the capital, said an oil depot was hit.
Zelenskyy’s office also said Russian forces blew up a gas pipeline in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city. The government warned that smoke from the huge explosion could cause an “environmental catastrophe” and advised people to cover their windows with damp cloth or gauze.
“We will fight for as long as needed to liberate our country,” Zelenskyy vowed.
President Vladimir Putin hasn’t disclosed his ultimate plans, but Western officials believe he is determined to overthrow Ukraine’s government and replace it with a regime of his own, redrawing the map of Europe and reviving Moscow’s Cold War-era influence.
To aid Ukraine’s ability to hold out, the U.S. pledged an additional $350 million in military assistance to Ukraine, including anti-tank weapons, body armor and small arms. Germany said it would send missiles and anti-tank weapons to the besieged country and that it would close its airspace to Russian planes.
The U.S., European Union and United Kingdom agreed to block “selected” Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial messaging system, which moves money around more than 11,000 banks and other financial institutions worldwide, part of a new round of sanctions aiming to impose a severe cost on Moscow for the invasion. They also agreed to impose ”restrictive measures” on Russia’s central bank.
It was unclear how much territory Russian forces had seized or to what extent their advance had been stalled. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said “the speed of the Russian advance has temporarily slowed likely as a result of acute logistical difficulties and strong Ukrainian resistance.”
A senior U.S. defense official said more than half the Russian combat power that was massed along Ukraine’s borders has entered the country and Moscow has had to commit more fuel supply and other support units inside Ukraine than originally anticipated. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal U.S. assessments.
The curfew forcing everyone in Kyiv inside was set to last through Monday morning. The relative quiet of the capital was sporadically broken by gunfire.
Fighting on the city’s outskirts suggested that small Russian units were trying to clear a path for the main forces. Small groups of Russian troops were reported inside Kyiv, but Britain and the U.S. said the bulk of the forces were 19 miles (30 kilometers) from the city’s center as of the afternoon.
Russia claims its assault on Ukraine from the north, east and south is aimed only at military targets, but bridges, schools and residential neighborhoods have been hit.
Ukraine’s health minister reported Saturday that 198 people, including three children, had been killed and more than 1,000 others wounded during Europe’s largest land war since World War II. It was unclear whether those figures included both military and civilian casualties.
A missile struck a high-rise apartment building in Kyiv’s southwestern outskirts near one of the city’s two passenger airports, leaving a jagged hole of ravaged apartments over several floors. A rescue worker said six civilians were injured.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, said troops in Kyiv were fighting Russian “sabotage groups.” Ukraine says some 200 Russian soldiers have been captured and thousands killed.
Markarova said Ukraine was gathering evidence of shelling of residential areas, kindergartens and hospitals to submit to The Hague as possible crimes against humanity.
Zelenskyy reiterated his openness to talks with Russia in a video message, saying he welcomed an offer from Turkey and Azerbaijan to organize diplomatic efforts, which so far have faltered.
The Kremlin confirmed a phone call between Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev but gave no hint of restarting talks. A day earlier, Zelenskyy offered to negotiate a key Russian demand: abandoning ambitions of joining NATO.
Putin sent troops into Ukraine after denying for weeks that he intended to do so, all the while building up a force of almost 200,000 troops along the countries’ borders. He claims the West has failed to take seriously Russia’s security concerns about NATO, the Western military alliance that Ukraine aspires to join. But he has also expressed scorn about Ukraine’s right to exist as an independent state.
The effort was already coming at great cost to Ukraine, and apparently to Russian forces as well.
Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry said a Russian missile was shot down before dawn Saturday as it headed for the dam of the sprawling reservoir that serves Kyiv. The government also said a Russian convoy was destroyed. Video images showed soldiers inspecting burned-out vehicles after Ukraine’s 101st brigade reported destroying a column of two light vehicles, two trucks and a tank. The claim could not be verified.
Highways into Kyiv from the east were dotted with checkpoints manned by Ukrainian troops and young men in civilian clothes carrying automatic rifles. Low-flying planes patrolled the skies, though it was unclear if they were Russian or Ukrainian.
In addition to Kyiv, the Russian assault appeared to focus on Ukraine’s economically vital coastal areas, from near the Black Sea port of Odesa in the west to beyond the Azov Sea port of Mariupol in the east.
Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol guarded bridges and blocked people from the shoreline amid concerns the Russian navy could launch an assault from the sea.
“I don’t care anymore who wins and who doesn’t,” said Ruzanna Zubenko, whose large family was forced from their home outside Mariupol after it was badly damaged by shelling. “The only important thing is for our children to be able to grow up smiling and not crying.”
Fighting also raged in two eastern territories controlled by pro-Russia separatists. Authorities in Donetsk said hot water supplies to the city of about 900,000 were suspended because of damage to the system by Ukrainian shelling.
The U.S. government urged Zelenskyy early Saturday to evacuate Kyiv but he turned down the offer, according to a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of the conversation. Zelenskyy issued a defiant video recorded on a downtown street, saying he remained in the city.
“We aren’t going to lay down weapons. We will protect the country,” he said. “Our weapon is our truth, and our truth is that it’s our land, our country, our children. And we will defend all of that.”
Hungary and Poland both opened their borders to Ukrainians.
Refugees arriving in the Hungarian border town of Zahony said men between the ages of 18 and 60 were not being allowed to leave Ukraine.
“My son was not allowed to come. My heart is so sore, I’m shaking,” said Vilma Sugar, 68.
At Poland’s Medyka crossing, some said they had walked for 15 miles (35 kilometers) to reach the border.
“They didn’t have food, no tea, they were standing in the middle of a field, on the road, kids were freezing,” Iryna Wiklenko said as she waited on the Polish side for her grandchildren and daughter-in-law to make it across.
Officials in Kyiv urged residents to stay away from windows to avoid debris or bullets. Many hunkered down in basements, underground garages and subway stations, where families, some with pets, camped out on hard floors.
Shelves were sparsely stocked at grocery stores and pharmacies, and people worried how long food and medicine supplies might last.
The U.S. and its allies have beefed up forces on NATO’s eastern flank but so far have ruled out deploying troops to fight Russia. Instead, the U.S., the European Union and other countries have slapped wide-ranging sanctions on Russia, freezing the assets of businesses and individuals including Putin and his foreign minister.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, warned that Moscow could react by opting out of the last remaining nuclear arms pact, freezing Western assets and cutting diplomatic ties.
“There is no particular need in maintaining diplomatic relations,” Medvedev said. “We may look at each other in binoculars and gunsights.”
AP
Kyiv officials are warning residents that street fighting is underway against Russian forces, and they are urging people to seek shelter.
The warning issued Saturday advised residents to remain in shelters, to avoid going near windows or on balconies, and to take precautions against being hit by debris or bullets.
Russian troops stormed toward Ukraine’s capital early Saturday as explosions reverberated through the city and the president urged the country to “stand firm” against the siege that could determine its future. He refused American help to evacuate, saying: “The fight is here.”
Hundreds of casualties were reported in the fighting, which included shelling that sliced through a Kyiv apartment building and pummeled bridges and schools. There also were growing signs that Russia may be seeking to overthrow Ukraine’s government, which U.S. officials have described as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ultimate objective.
The assault represented Putin’s boldest effort yet to redraw the world map and revive Moscow’s Cold War-era influence. It triggered new international efforts to end the invasion, including direct sanctions on Putin.
As his country confronted explosions and gunfire, and as the fate of Kyiv hung in the balance, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealed for a cease-fire and warned in a bleak statement that multiple cities were under attack.
“This night we have to stand firm,” he said. “The fate of Ukraine is being decided right now.”
Zelenskyy was urged to evacuate Kyiv at the behest of the U.S. government but turned down the offer, according to a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of the conversation. The official quoted the president as saying that “the fight is here” and that he needed anti-tank ammunition but “not a ride.”
For their part, U.S. defense officials believe the Russian offensive has encountered considerable resistance and is proceeding slower than Moscow had envisioned, though that could change quickly.
The Kremlin accepted Kyiv’s offer to hold talks, but it appeared to be an effort to squeeze concessions out of the embattled Zelenskyy instead of a gesture toward a diplomatic solution.
The Russian military continued its advance, laying claim Friday to the southern Ukraine city of Melitopol. Still, it was unclear in the fog of war how much of Ukraine is still under Ukrainian control and how much or little Russian forces have seized.
As fighting persisted, Ukraine’s military reported shooting down an II-76 Russian transport plane carrying paratroopers near Vasylkiv, a city 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Kyiv, an account confirmed by a senior American intelligence official. It was unclear how many were on board. Transport planes can carry up to 125 paratroopers.
A second Russian military transport plane was shot down near Bila Tserkva, 50 miles (85 kilometers) south of Kyiv, according to two American officials with direct knowledge of conditions on the ground in Ukraine.
The Russian military has not commented on either plane.
The U.S. and other global powers slapped ever-tougher sanctions on Russia as the invasion reverberated through the world’s economy and energy supplies, threatening to further hit ordinary households. U.N. officials said millions could flee Ukraine. Sports leagues moved to punish Russia and even the popular Eurovision song contest banned it from the May finals in Italy.
Through it all, Russia remained unbowed, vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that it stop attacking Ukraine and withdraw troops immediately. The veto was expected, but the U.S. and its supporters argued that the effort would highlight Moscow’s international isolation. The 11-1 vote, with China, India and the United Arab Emirates abstaining, showed significant but not total opposition to Russia’s invasion of its smaller, militarily weaker neighbor.
NATO, meanwhile, decided to send parts of the alliance’s response force to help protect its member nations in the east for the first time. NATO did not say how many troops would be deployed but added that it would involve land, sea and air power.
Day Two of Russia’s invasion, the largest ground war in Europe since World War II, focused on the Ukrainian capital, where Associated Press reporters heard explosions starting before dawn. Gunfire was reported in several areas.
A large boom was heard in the evening near Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the square in central Kyiv that was the heart of protests which led to the 2014 ouster of a Kremlin-friendly president. The cause was not immediately known.
Five explosions struck near a major power plant on Kyiv’s eastern outskirts, said Mayor Vitaly Klitschko. There was no information on what caused them, and no electrical outages were immediately reported.
It was unclear how many people overall had died. Ukrainian officials reported at least 137 deaths on their side from the first full day of fighting and claimed hundreds on the Russian one. Russian authorities released no casualty figures.
U.N. officials reported 25 civilian deaths, mostly from shelling and airstrikes, and said that 100,000 people were believed to have left their homes. They estimate that up to 4 million could flee if the fighting escalates.
Zelenskyy tweeted that he and U.S. President Joe Biden spoke by phone and discussed “strengthening sanctions, concrete defense assistance and an antiwar coalition.”
Late Friday, Biden signed a memo clearing the way for the U.S. to expedite more than $500 million in emergency military assistance to the Ukrainian government, though it was not immediately clear how quickly the aid would flow.
Zelenskyy’s whereabouts were kept secret after Zelenskyy told European leaders in a call Thursday that he was Russia’s No. 1 target — and that they might not see him again alive. His office later released a video of him standing with senior aides outside the presidential office and saying that he and other government officials would stay in the capital.
Zelenskyy earlier offered to negotiate on a key Putin demand: that Ukraine declare itself neutral and abandon its ambition of joining NATO. The Kremlin said Kyiv initially agreed to have talks in Minsk, then said it would prefer Warsaw and later halted communications. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said later that Kyiv would discuss prospects for talks on Saturday.
The assault was anticipated for weeks by the U.S. and Western allies and denied to be in the works just as long by Putin. He argued the West left him with no other choice by refusing to negotiate Russia’s security demands.
In a window into how the increasingly isolated Putin views Ukraine and its leadership, he urged Ukraine’s military to surrender, saying: “We would find it easier to agree with you than with that gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis who have holed up in Kyiv and have taken the entire Ukrainian people hostage.”
Playing on Russian nostalgia for World War II heroism, the Kremlin equates members of Ukrainian right-wing groups with neo-Nazis. Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, angrily dismisses those claims.
Putin has not disclosed his ultimate plans for Ukraine. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave a hint, saying, “We want to allow the Ukrainian people to determine its own fate.” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia recognizes Zelenskyy as the president, but would not say how long the Russian military operation could last.
Ukrainians abruptly adjusted to life under fire, after Russian forces invaded the country from three sides as they massed an estimated 150,000 troops nearby.
Residents of a Kyiv apartment building woke to screaming, smoke and flying dust. What the mayor identified as Russian shelling tore off part of the building and ignited a fire.
“What are you doing? What is this?” resident Yurii Zhyhanov asked Russian forces. Like countless other Ukrainians, he grabbed what belongings he could, took his mother, and fled, car alarms wailing behind him.
Elsewhere in Kyiv, the body of a dead soldier lay near an underpass. Fragments of a downed aircraft smoked amid the brick homes of a residential area. Black plastic was draped over body parts found beside them. People climbed out of bomb shelters, basements and subways to face another day of upheaval.
“We’re all scared and worried. We don’t know what to do then, what’s going to happen in a few days,” said Lucy Vashaka, 20, a worker at a small Kyiv hotel.
At the Pentagon, press secretary John Kirby said the U.S. believes the offensive, including its advance on Kiev, has gone more slowly than Moscow had planned, noting that Ukraine forces have been fighting back. But he also said the military campaign is in an early stage and circumstances can change rapidly.
The Biden administration said Friday that it would move to freeze the assets of Putin and Lavrov, following the European Union and Britain in directly sanctioning top Russian leadership.
Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, called the sanctions against Putin and Lavrov “an example and a demonstration of a total helplessness” of the West.
AP
The Russian and Ukrainian governments on Friday signalled an openness to negotiations even as authorities in Kyiv urged citizens to help defend the capital from advancing Russian forces in the worst European security crisis in decades.
Ukraine and Russia will consult in coming hours on a time and place for talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's spokesman Sergii Nykyforov said on social media, offering the first glimmer of hope for diplomacy since the invasion began.
The Kremlin said earlier it offered to meet in the Belarusian capital Minsk after Ukraine expressed a willingness to discuss declaring itself a neutral country, but that Ukraine had proposed Warsaw as the venue. That, according to Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov, resulted in a "pause" in contacts.
"Ukraine was and remains ready to talk about a ceasefire and peace," Nykyforov said in a post on Facebook. "We agreed to the proposal of the President of the Russian Federation."
But U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Russia's offer was an attempt to conduct diplomacy "at the barrel of a gun", and that President Vladimir Putin's military must stop bombing Ukraine if it was serious about negotiations.
The diplomatic overtures stood in stark contrast to events unfolding on the ground and Putin's harsh rhetoric against Ukrainian leaders, including a call for a coup by the country's military.
Kyiv residents were told by the defence ministry to make petrol bombs to repel the invaders, and on Friday evening witnesses reported hearing artillery rounds and intense gunfire from the western part of the city. The sound of frequent artillery fire, apparently some distance from the city center, continued in the early hours of Saturday.
Zelenskiy filmed himself with aides on the streets of the capital, vowing to defend Ukraine's independence.
"Tonight, they will launch an assault. All of us must understand what awaits us. We must withstand this night," he said in a video address posted to his Telegram channel. "The fate of Ukraine is being decided right now."
Some families cowered in shelters after Kyiv was pounded on Thursday night by Russian missiles. Others tried desperately to get on packed trains headed west, some of the hundreds of thousands who have left their homes to find safety, according to the United Nations' aid chief.
After weeks of warnings from Western leaders, Putin unleashed a three-pronged invasion of Ukraine from the north, east and south on Thursday, in an attack that threatened to upend Europe's post-Cold War order.
"I once again appeal to the military personnel of the armed forces of Ukraine: do not allow neo-Nazis and (Ukrainian radical nationalists) to use your children, wives and elders as human shields," Putin said at a televised meeting with Russia's Security Council on Friday. "Take power into your own hands."
Putin has cited the need to "denazify" Ukraine's leadership as one of his main reasons for invasion, accusing it of genocide against Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss the accusations as baseless propaganda.
The United States imposed sanctions on Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov. The European Union and Britain earlier froze any assets Putin and Lavrov held in their territory. Canada took similar steps.
However, the steady ramping-up of economic restrictions has not deterred Putin.
Moscow said on Friday it had captured the Hostomel airfield northwest of the capital - a potential staging post for an assault on Kyiv that has been fought over since Russian paratroopers landed there in the first hours of the war. This could not be confirmed and Ukrainian authorities reported heavy fighting there.
Early on Saturday, Ukraine's air force command reported heavy fighting near the air base at Vasylkiv southwest of Kyiv, which it said was under attack from Russian paratroopers. It also said one of its fighters had shot down a Russian transport plane. Reuters could not independently verify the claims.
The mayor of Kyiv and its 3 million people, former world heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, said on Friday Russian saboteurs had already entered the city. "The enemy wants to put the capital on its knees and destroy us," he said.
'GLORY TO OUR DEFENDERS'
In New York, Russia vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would have deplored Moscow's invasion, while China abstained, a move Western countries viewed as proof of Russia's isolation. The United Arab Emirates and India also abstained while the remaining 11 members voted in favor.
Amid the chaos of war, a picture of what was happening on the ground across Ukraine - the second largest country in Europe after Russia itself - was slow to emerge.
Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter that there had been heavy fighting with deaths at the entrance to the eastern cities of Chernihiv and Melitopol, as well as at Hostomel.
"Glory to our defenders, both male and female, glory to Ukraine," he said, flanked by the prime minister and advisors in a video posted to confirm he was in the capital.
Witnesses said they had heard explosions and gunfire near the airport in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, close to Russia's border. Ukraine's military said Russian troops had been stopped with heavy losses near the northeastern city of Konotop.
Britain's defence ministry said Russian armoured forces had opened a new route of advance towards the capital after failing to take Chernihiv.
Ukraine said more than 1,000 Russian soldiers had been killed so far. Russia did not release casualty figures.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to his Ukrainian counterpart and condemned reported civilian deaths, including those of Ukrainian children, in attacks around Kyiv, the State Department said.
United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said hundreds of thousands of people were on the move in Ukraine.
The White House asked Congress for $6.4 billion in security and humanitarian aid for the crisis, officials said.
Ukraine has banned men of fighting age from leaving, and at borders with Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, those seen crossing by Reuters journalists were mostly women and children.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the coordinated decision to sanction Putin - something U.S. President Joe Biden had avoided until now - was intended to send a clear message of allied unity.
Russia's foreign ministry said the new sanctions reflected the West's "absolute impotence," the RIA news agency reported.
Western countries have announced a barrage of sanctions on Russia, including blacklisting its banks and banning technology exports. But they have so far stopped short of forcing it out of the SWIFT system for international bank payments.
On Friday, European soccer's governing body moved May's Champions League final from St Petersburg to Paris, and Formula One cancelled this year's Russian Grand Prix. The European Broadcasting Union shut Russia out of the widely watched Eurovision Song Contest for 2022.
'BURN IN HELL'
U.S. officials believe Russia's initial aim is to "decapitate" Zelenskiy's government.
Putin says Ukraine, a democratic nation of 44 million people, is an illegitimate state carved out of Russia, a view Ukrainians see as aimed at erasing their more than thousand-year history.
He says he does not plan a military occupation, only to disarm Ukraine and remove its leaders, but it is not clear how a pro-Russian leader could be installed unless Russian troops control much of the country.
Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence at the fall of the Soviet Union and Kyiv hopes to join NATO and the EU - aspirations that infuriate Moscow.
As air raid sirens wailed over Kyiv for a second day, some residents sheltered in underground metro stations.
Windows were blasted out of a 10-storey apartment block near the main airport. "How can we be living through this in our time? Putin should burn in hell along with his whole family," said Oxana Gulenko, sweeping broken glass from her room.
Hundreds crowded into a cramped shelter beneath one building after a televised warning of air strikes.
"How can you wage a war against peaceful people?" said Viktoria, 35, as her children aged 5 and 7 slept in their winter coats.
Reuters
Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc's shares plunged more than 20% late on Wednesday after the social media company posted a weaker-than-expected forecast, blaming Apple's privacy changes and increased competition for users from rivals like TikTok.
Facebook’s global daily active users declined from the previous quarter for the first time, to 1.929 billion from 1.930 billion.
Meta said it faced hits from Apple Inc's privacy changes to its operating system, which have made it harder for brands to target and measure their ads on Facebook and Instagram. It also cited macroeconomic issues like supply-chain disruptions.
The 18-year-old tech giant, which also faces pressure from platforms like TikTok and Google's YouTube, said it expected slowing revenue growth in the coming quarter due to increased competition for users' time and a shift of engagement toward such features as its short video offering Reels, which generate less revenue.
Facebook reported 2.91 billion monthly active users in the fourth quarter, showing no growth compared with the previous quarter.
The after-hours slump in Meta shares vaporized $200 billion of its market value, while peers Twitter Inc , Snap Inc and Pinterest Inc lost another $15 billion in value.
Shares of Alphabet Inc, which posted record quarterly sales that topped expectations on Tuesday, were down nearly 2%.
Meta, owner of the second-largest digital ad platform in the world after Google, had previously warned its advertising business faced "significant uncertainty" in the fourth quarter.
Meta's chief financial officer, Dave Wehner, told analysts on a conference call that the impact of Apple's privacy changes could be "in the order of $10 billion" for 2022.
Apple's changes to its operating software give users the choice to prevent apps from tracking their online activity for ads, making it harder for advertisers that rely on data to develop new products and know their market.
Meta forecast first-quarter revenue in the range of $27 billion to $29 billion. Analysts were expecting $30.15 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
"It's clear that there are many big roadblocks ahead as Meta faces tough new competition for ad revenue such as TikTok, and as it contends with ongoing ad targeting and measurement challenges from Apple's iOS changes," said Insider Intelligence analyst Debra Aho Williamson.
The company's total revenue, the bulk of which comes from ad sales, rose to $33.67 billion in the fourth quarter from $28.07 billion a year earlier, beating analysts' estimates of $33.40 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
"I'm encouraged by the progress we made this past year in a number of important growth areas like Reels, commerce, and virtual reality, and we'll continue investing in these and other key priorities in 2022 as we work towards building the metaverse," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the earnings release.
In Meta's earnings call, he said competition for users was one factor impacting the business, mentioning short video app TikTok by name and emphasizing Meta's commitment to providing services for young adults.
Net loss from Meta's Reality Labs, the company's augmented and virtual reality business, was $10.2 billion for the full year 2021, compared with a $6.6 billion loss the previous year. It was the first time the company had broken out this segment in its results.
Zuckerberg had previously warned that the company's investment in this area would reduce 2021 operating profit by $10 billion and would not be profitable "any time in the near future."
Reality Labs posted revenue of about $2.3 billion in 2021. The company has not made public the sales numbers for its virtual reality Quest headsets.
The company said on Wednesday it would this year change its stock ticker to "META," the latest step in its rebrand to focus on the metaverse, a futuristic idea of virtual environments where users can work, socialize and play. Meta did not comment on the price of a deal with Roundhill Investments, which said in January it would stop using the symbol for its Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF.
The tech giant, which changed its name in October to reflect its metaverse aims, is betting the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet.
"Investors looking at Meta are starting to realize that buying their stock is no longer mostly an investment into their ad platform," said Flynn Zaiger, CEO of social media agency Online Optimism. "Investing in Meta now looks more like a commitment that you believe that the metaverse will replace much of the internet consumers' experience today."
Meta's rebrand comes at a time of increasing scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators over allegations of anticompetitive conduct and over the impacts of how it handles harmful or misleading content across its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
Reuters
China, Russia, Britain, the United States and France have agreed that a further spread of nuclear arms and a nuclear war should be avoided, according to a joint statement by the five nuclear powers published by the Kremlin on Monday.
It said that the five countries - which are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - consider it their primary responsibility to avoid war between the nuclear states and to reduce strategic risks, while aiming to work with all countries to create an atmosphere of security.
"We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," the English-language version of the statement read.
"As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons — for as long as they continue to exist — should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war."
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu said the joint statement could help increase mutual trust and "replace competition among major powers with coordination and cooperation," adding that China has a "no first use" policy on nuclear weapons, state news agency Xinhua reported.
France also released the statement, underscoring that the five powers reiterated their determination for nuclear arms control and disarmament. They would continue bilateral and multilateral approaches to nuclear arms control, it said.
The statement from the so-called P5 group comes as bilateral relations between the United States and Moscow have fallen to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War, while relations between Washington and China are also at a low over a range of disagreements.
The Pentagon in November sharply increased its estimate of China's projected nuclear weapons arsenal over the coming years, saying Beijing could have 700 warheads by 2027 and possibly 1,000 by 2030.
Washington has repeatedly urged China to join it and Russia in a new arms control treaty.
Geopolitical tensions between Moscow and Western countries have increased over concerns about Russia's military buildup near neighbouring Ukraine. Moscow says it can move its army around its own territory as it deems necessary.
Last Thursday U.S. President Joe Biden told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that a possible move on Ukraine would draw sanctions and an increased U.S. presence in Europe.
U.S. and Russian officials will hold security talks on Jan. 10 to discuss concerns about their respective military activity and confront rising tensions over Ukraine, the two countries said.
A conference on a major nuclear treaty that was set to begin on Tuesday at the United Nations has been postponed until August due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Reuters
Having end-to-end encryption may not be enough cover for privacy when using popular encrypted messaging applications, because law enforcement can access your data when they want to.
A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) document prepared on January 7 has provided the kinds of user data various secure messaging apps can share at the request of law enforcement agencies.
Titled “Lawful Access,” the one-page document detailed the “FBl’s ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata.”
The “unclassified” document designated as “for official use only” and “law enforcement sensitive” was prepared by the FBI’s science and technology branch and operational technology division.
According to Rolling Stone, which first reported on it, the document was obtained by a group called Property of the People through an FOIA request.
It is an internal guide to how the FBI can snoop on targets using data requested from nine companies and their services: Apple’s iMessage, Line, Signal, Telegram, Threema, Viber, Tencent’s WeChat, Meta’s WhatsApp and Wickr.
Information accessible include subscriber data, messenger sender-receiver data, device backup, IP address, encryption keys, date/time information, registration time information and user contacts. All but one (IP address) of iMessage can be accessed by the FBI.
For WhatsApp, Line and iMessage, the access to message content is limited, while in the remaining, the FBI said it has no access to message content.
Only the information on the last date of a user’s connectivity and the date and time a user registered can be accessed for Signal. Telegram provides only registration time data, but for confirmed terrorist investigation, it “may disclose IO address and phone number to relevant authorities.”
“As of November 2020, the FBI’s ability to legally access secure content on leading messaging applications is depicted below, including details on accessible information based on the applicable legal process,” the document read.
“Return data provided by the companies listed below, with the exception of WhatsApp, are actually logs of latent data that are provided to law enforcement in a non-real-time manner and may impact investigations due to delivery delays.”
Some of the information in the document is not new. For one, Apple could provide full texts sent via iMessage to law enforcement if they are backed up to iCloud.
Likewise, many social networks can collect metadata even if they can not share the contents of a message, according to PC Magazine.
Nonetheless, the document is a watershed on the long debate between privacy and security.
On one hand, there are those who feel content with end-to-end encrypted communications, irrespective of third party backend access. On the other are journalists and whistleblowers who need confidentiality to stay safe.
The FBI’s revelation showed that WhatsApp is the only popular secure messaging app that provides near-real-time data in response to law enforcement requests. WhatsApp confirmed this to Rolling Stone.
“If target is using an iPhone and iCloud backups enabled, iCloud returns may contain WhatsApp data to include message content,” the document’s footnote on the “limited” message content field indicates read.
WhatsApp might have provided a workaround for this, however.
In September, WhatsApp introduced the end-to-end encryption backups which enable users to store their data in a Backup Key Vault built based on a component called a hardware security module (HSM), a specialized, secure hardware, other than “cloud-based services like Google Drive and iCloud” which “WhatsApp does not have access to (as) they are secured by the individual cloud-based storage services.”
“We carefully review, validate, and respond to law-enforcement requests based on applicable law, and are clear about this on our website and in regular transparency reports.” WhatsApp told Rolling Stone.
“[The document] illustrates what we’ve been saying — that law enforcement doesn’t need to break end-to-end encryption to successfully investigate crimes.”
PT
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Indonesian government says it will ban travellers from Nigeria and seven other African countries over concerns about the spread of the Omicron Covid-19 variant.
No single case of Omicron has yet been reported in Nigeria.
Travellers who have been to South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Eswatini, or Nigeria for the past 14 days are affected.
According to Reuters, Indonesia senior ministers told a news conference that the travel restrictions will take effect on Monday and reevaluated every two weeks.
Luhut Pandjaitan, coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, said Indonesian citizens who have been to the eight African countries and Hong Kong will quarantine in designated facilities for 14 days.
Pandjaitan also disclosed that travellers entering the country will have to quarantine for seven days compared to three days earlier announced.
“Omicron has spread to more countries, so to respond to these developments, today the government wants to carry out the following policies,” the minister was quoted to have said by Reuters.
On Thursday, South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) announced the discovery of the new variant, B.1.1.529.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) had named it ‘Omicron’ and classified it as a variant of concern.
The global health organisation advised countries to enhance surveillance and sequencing efforts, as well as ensure strict adherence to the Covid protocol to limit the spread of infections.
On Sunday, Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), advised world leaders not to label or penalise African nations for new Covid-19 variants and mutations happening across the world.
The Cable
The discovery of a new coronavirus variant named Omicron triggered global alarm on Friday as countries rushed to suspend travel from southern Africa and stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic suffered their biggest falls in more than a year.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Omicron may spread more quickly than other forms, and preliminary evidence suggested there is an increased risk of reinfection.
Epidemiologists warned travel curbs may be too late to stop Omicron from circulating globally. The new mutations were first discovered in South Africa and have since been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong.
The United States will restrict travel from South Africa and neighbouring countries effective Monday, a senior Biden administration official said.
Going further, Canada said it was closing its borders to those countries, following bans on flights announced by Britain, the European Union and others.
But it could take weeks for scientists to fully understand the variant's mutations and whether existing vaccines and treatments are effective against it. Omicron is the fifth variant of concern designated by the WHO.
The variant has a spike protein that is dramatically different than the one in the original coronavirus that vaccines are based on, the UK Health Security Agency said, raising fears about how current vaccines will fare.
Scientists issued similar warnings.
"This new variant of the Covid-19 virus is very worrying. It is the most heavily mutated version of the virus we have seen to date," said Lawrence Young, a virologist at Britain's University of Warwick.
"Some of the mutations that are similar to changes we've seen in other variants of concern are associated with enhanced transmissibility and with partial resistance to immunity induced by vaccination or natural infection."
Those worries pummelled financial markets, especially stocks of airlines and others in the travel sector, and oil, which tumbled by about $10 a barrel.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) closed down 2.5%, its worst day since late October 2020, and European stocks (.STOXX) had their worst day in 17 months.
Cruise operators Carnival Corp (CCL.N), Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL.N) and Norwegian Cruise Line plunged more than 10% each, while shares in United Airlines (UAL.O), Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) and American Airlines (AAL.O) slumped almost as much.
'MOST SIGNIFICANT VARIANT'
Several other countries including India, Japan, Israel, Turkey, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates also toughened travel curbs.
In Geneva the WHO - whose experts on Friday discussed the risks presented by the variant, called B.1.1.529 - had earlier warned against travel curbs for now.
"It's really important that there are no knee-jerk responses," said the WHO's emergencies director Mike Ryan, praising South Africa's public health institutions for picking up the new variant of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
Richard Lessells, a South Africa-based infectious disease expert, also expressed frustration at travel bans, saying the focus should be on getting more people vaccinated in places that have struggled to access sufficient shots.
"This is why we talked about the risk of vaccine apartheid. This virus can evolve in the absence of adequate levels of vaccination," he told Reuters.
Less than 7% of people in low-income countries have received their first Covid-19 shot, according to medical and human rights groups. Meanwhile, many developed nations are giving third-dose boosters.
"Failure to help vaccinate sub-Saharan Africa - still barely 4% of the population - left us all exposed to risk of a new, more virulent #Covid variant," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva wrote on Twitter. "News of #Omicron is an urgent reminder of why we need to do even more to vaccinate the world."
TOO LATE FOR TRAVEL CURBS?
The coronavirus has swept the world in the two years since it was first identified in central China, infecting 260 million people and killing 5.4 million.
One epidemiologist in Hong Kong said it may be too late to tighten travel curbs against the latest variant.
"Most likely this virus is already in other places. And so if we shut the door now, it's going to be probably too late," said Ben Cowling of the University of Hong Kong.
Discovery of the new variant comes as Europe and the United States enter winter, with more people gathering indoors in the run-up to Christmas, providing a breeding ground for infection.
Friday also marked the start of the holiday shopping period in the United States, but stores were less crowded than in years past.
Realtor Kelsey Hupp, 36, was at the Macy's department store in downtown Chicago on Black Friday.
"Chicago is pretty safe and masked and vaccinated. I got my booster so I'm not too concerned about it," she said.
Reuters
A federal judge in Pennsylvania has sentenced a Nigerian man to more than seven years in prison for conspiring to launder approximately $1.89 million in mail and wire fraud proceeds in a scheme that targeted women.
Jabin Okpako, 36, and his wife, Christine Bradley Okpako, 54, of Sayre, Pennsylvania, transferred the funds out of the United States to three separate bank accounts in Nigeria, prosecutors said.
Authorities said the couple targeted women, ranging in age from 55 to 85, who visited online game, relationship and dating websites. After cultivating online relationships, the pair induced the women to send money for fictitious reasons, prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors, the fictitious purposes included to help a worker in Alaska who fell from a tower, to aid the United Nations and to recover a $6 million inheritance.
The judge ordered Jabin Okpako to make restitution in the amount of $440,950 and to forfeit proceeds of the criminal activity.
His wife pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to commit money laundering through mail and wire fraud and is awaiting sentencing.
AP
After spending 43 years behind bars for a crime he said he didn't commit, a Missouri man's conviction has been set aside, according to a news release from Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker.
Senior Judge James Welsh filed his ruling Tuesday morning to set aside the conviction of 62-year-old Kevin Strickland, who served 43 years at Western Missouri Correctional Center in Cameron, Missouri, after he was convicted of one count of capital murder and two counts of second-degree murder in a triple homicide. He received a 50-year life sentence without the possibility for parole for a crime he maintained he wasn't involved in.
Strickland, from a wheelchair, spoke shortly after he was released from jail Tuesday afternoon and said he's thankful for his attorneys and everyone who listened to him over the years while he maintained his innocence.
All criminal counts against Strickland were dismissed. His release makes his confinement the longest wrongful imprisonment in Missouri history and one of the longest in the nation, according to The National Registry of Exonerations.
"Still in disbelief," Strickland said. "I didn't think this day would come."
Strickland said he found out the news of his release through a breaking news report that interrupted the soap opera he was watching.
"To say we're extremely pleased and grateful is an understatement," Peters Baker said.
"This brings justice -- finally -- to a man who has tragically suffered so, so greatly as a result of this wrongful conviction."
Strickland testified during a three-day evidentiary hearing earlier this month -- which involved eyewitness testimony given under oath -- Strickland's legal team presented evidence and arguments to exonerate him.
Four people were shot in Kansas City, Missouri, on April 25, 1978, resulting in three deaths, according to CNN affiliate KSHB. The only survivor of the crime, Cynthia Douglas, who died in 2015, testified in 1978 Strickland was at the scene of the triple murder.
Douglas survived the shooting after sustaining a shotgun injury and told police Vincent Bell and Kiln Adkins were two of the perpetrators. But she did not identify Strickland, who she knew, at the scene until a day later, according to KSHB, after it was suggested to her Strickland's hair matched Douglas' description of the shooter. Douglas claimed her initial failure to identify him was due to the use of cognac and marijuana, according to KSHB.
But over the past 30 years she said she made a mistake and falsely identified Strickland. According to KSHB, Douglas made efforts to free Strickland through the Midwest Innocence Project.
The two assailants Douglas identified at the scene both pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and each ended up serving about 10 years in prison for the crimes, according to Strickland's attorney, Robert Hoffman.
"Most of us have heard the famous quotation that 'injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,'" Peters Baker said in an online statement posted in August. "Kevin Strickland stands as our own example of what happens when a system set to be just, just gets it terribly wrong."
Strickland thanked the judge for reviewing all the "non evidence" against him and he appreciated the judge taking his time to listen and understand what really happened in 1978.
Eventually Strickland said he wants to get involved in speaking and possibly influencing legislation, and added he has ideas on how to keep this from happening to someone else.
A GoFundMe account has been set up by the Midwest Innocence Project to help him restart his life. They note the State of Missouri will provide no compensation for the time he spent in prison.
In 2020, there were 129 exonerations nationwide. Defendants exonerated last year lost a total of 1,737 years behind bars, an average of 13.4 years per exoneration, according to a report from The National Registry of Exonerations. And 30% of wrongful convictions in the registry's database can be traced back to mistaken eyewitness identifications.
CNN