Ukraine invasion: US and EU sanction Putin and his top envoy after Russian troops enter Kyiv
- White House says it would take steps against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ‘in alignment and coordination’ with Brussels
- Nato condemns Russia ‘in the strongest possible terms’ in an emergency meeting
Nato, meanwhile, condemned “in the strongest possible terms” Russia’s moves, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accusing Russia of targeting civilian areas.
The EU sanctions followed Zelensky’s criticism of the bloc’s leaders for what he considered a weak response to the Russian invasion, warning that Moscow’s attacks should be seen as “the beginning of a war against Europe”.
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Russian forces capture Chernobyl, as death toll rises from Ukraine conflict
Read on for updates as events develop.
Following abstention at UN, China calls for diplomacy
After it abstained from a vote at the United Nations Security Council on a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China urged all parties to “return immediately to the track of diplomatic negotiations,” without criticising Moscow’s actions.
“Ukraine should become a bridge between the East and the West, not an outpost for confrontation between major powers,” Zhang Jun, China’s envoy to the United Nations, said following the vote, which failed due to a veto from Russia.
Without offering an explicit explanation for China’s abstention decision, Zhang said that any actions taken by the Security Council “should be truly conducive to defusing the crisis, rather than adding fuel to fire.”
Russia’s envoy thanked those who did not vote for the resolution – China, India and the United Arab Emirates – and reiterated the Kremlin’s claims that its military action against Ukraine was aimed at liberating the country from “Nazis” in its government.
