The Latest on the Russia-Ukraine crisis:
BERLIN — Protesters have flocked to the Russian embassy in Berlin to decry Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order to deploy troops to separatist regions of eastern Ukraine.
People were waving yellow-blue Ukrainian flags and chanting “We stand united with Ukraine!” as they assembled in front of the building near the German capital’s landmark Brandenburg Gate on Tuesday evening.
Some held up banners saying “Ukraine will resist,” “Say no to Putin” or “Implement sanctions immediately,” while others wrapped themselves into huge Ukrainian flags.
“I’m here to protest against Russia invading our independent Ukrainian territory,” said Victoria Baron, 27, who moved from Odesa in Ukraine last summer to work for a data science company in Berlin.
“It’s very important that we support our people even though we’re abroad,” she said adding that she talked to her family back home almost every day and spends hours on social media following the latest developments.
Baron was very worried about the future of Ukraine and said that she thought “that right now everything is possible” including Russian troops heading into mainland Ukraine.
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MOSCOW — The Russian Foreign Ministry said that it has decided to evacuate Russian diplomatic personnel from Ukraine, pointing at threats.
The ministry said Tuesday that Russian diplomats in Ukraine have received multiple threats, adding that they will be evacuated “in the nearest time.” It did not elaborate.
The move follows Russia’s recognition of Ukraine’s rebel regions and the Russian parliament’s vote to grant President Vladimir Putin a permission to use military force in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv is only a three hour drive from the border of Belarus, where Russia has stationed troops for earlier war games.
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BRUSSELS — French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian says the European Union's 27 members have unanimously agreed on an initial set of sanctions targeting Russian officials involved in Ukraine.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday this first package of sanctions “will hurt Russia and it will hurt a lot.”
He said the sanctions would affect members of Russia’s duma who voted against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine as well as another 27 people and “entities" which are often companies, banks or agencies.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said sanctions will directly target individuals and companies, as well as banks financing “the Russian military apparatus” and contributing to the destabilization of Ukraine.
In addition, von der Leyen said the EU will limit the Russian government’s ability to raise capital on the bloc’s financial markets.
“We will make it as difficult as possible for the Kremlin to pursue its aggressive actions,” she said.
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BERLIN — Germany’s top security official says authorities are preparing for possible cyberattacks in response to the crisis with Russia.
The Interior Ministry said Tuesday that security agencies have taken protective measures to avert such attacks and Germany’s national cyber defense center is monitoring developments.
Interior Minister Nancy Faser said on Twitter that authorities “are prepared for all conceivable impacts of this conflict."
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BUCHAREST, Romania — Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said Tuesday after a phone call with his Polish counterpart that they have agreed to hold an “extraordinary summit” Friday in Warsaw between the Bucharest Nine members to “coordinate our response and demonstrate our unity” amid Russia's moves against Ukraine.
“Today I discussed with the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, the serious security situation in the Black Sea region, following Russian actions, which flagrantly violates international law,” Iohannis wrote online. “We stand with Ukraine!”
The Bucharest Nine, which Romania and Poland launched in 2015, is a group comprised of NATO’s easternmost members and also includes Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
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BELVOIR CASTLE, England — Defense ministers from the Baltic states urged world leaders to move swiftly and impose harsh sanctions on Russia, saying their countries know firsthand the dangers of trying to appease a bully.
The Baltic countries’ position on NATO’s eastern flank was at the forefront of discussions Tuesday as defense ministers from the Joint Expeditionary Force met in central England. The U.K.-led force is a group of 10 nations designed to react more quickly in the event of threats like those now posed by Russia.
Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said in an interview with the Associated Press that world leaders must act swiftly to impose punishing sanctions or it will be too late to stand up for freedom and democracy.
He said failure to stop the Russian president's “aggression" now would send the message that Moscow can “play around with the Europeans" and the U.S.
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LONDON — Sanctions experts say Western measures against Russia will have to go much further to have a chance of deterring President Vladimir Putin from further military intervention in Ukraine.
Tyler Kustra, a University of Nottingham politics professor, said sanctions announced Tuesday by Britain on five Russian banks and three wealthy individuals were “a paper cut.”
He said “the U.K. could be doing a lot more. There are certainly far more oil oligarchs in London that could be sanctioned. They could have their assets frozen, they could be kicked out of the country.”
Thomas Mayne, a corruption expert and visiting fellow at the Chatham House think-tank, also said Britain’s status as a hub for no-questions-asked Russian money was a major problem.
“For at least 20 years, we’ve been welcoming Russian money,” he said. “We’ve been allowing people with very dubious sources of wealth to gain Tier 1 investor visas in the U.K., to buy property, to list their companies on the London Stock Exchange, far more so than American stock exchanges. And we’ve created a situation where now we’re wondering whether that was such a good idea.”
He said Germany’s decision to halt Nord Stream 2 pipeline was “a welcome step" because part of the reason it was built was to cut Ukraine off from gas transit fees that Russia had to pay.
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MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for international recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, an end to Ukraine’s NATO membership bid and a halt to weapons shipments there.
Putin claimed Tuesday that Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula should be internationally recognized as a legitimate reflection of the local population’s choice, likening it to a vote for Kosovo independence.
The annexation has been widely condemned by Western powers as a breach of international law.
To end the current crisis, he also called for the renunciation of Ukraine’s NATO bid, saying it should assume a “neutral status,” and said that the West should stop sending weapons there.
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BRUSSELS — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says Russia is taking military action against Ukraine and has condemned Moscow’s decision to recognize separatist areas of southeast Ukraine as independent.
Stoltenberg called the move Tuesday a “serious escalation by Russia and a flagrant violation of international law.” The NATO chief called the military action a “further invasion" of Ukraine by Russia which had already invaded its neighbor in 2014.
He added that there’s “every indication” Russia continues to plan for a full-scale attack on Ukraine.
Stoltenberg said that NATO allies have more than 100 warplanes on high alert and more than 120 warships ready at sea from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean Sea.
He said that the NATO response force remains on high readiness but is not yet being deployed, although some allies are moving troops, ships and planes into the Baltic states and near the Black Sea to defend other NATO members.
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MOSCOW — Russian lawmakers have given President Vladimir Putin permission to use military force outside the country.
The unanimous vote in Russia's upper house on Tuesday could presage a broader attack on Ukraine after the U.S. said an invasion was already underway there.
The vote formalizes a Russian military deployment to the rebel regions, where an eight-year conflict has killed nearly 14,000 people.
Several European leaders said earlier in the day that Russian troops have moved into rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine after Putin recognized their independence.
But it was unclear how large the movements were. Ukraine and its Western allies have long said Russian troops are fighting in the region. Moscow denies those allegations.
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MOSCOW — Russia’s closest allies appeared reluctant to immediately back Moscow’s decision to recognize the independence of rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine.
The Foreign Ministry of Belarus said Tuesday it saw Russian President Vladimir Putin’s move “with respect and understanding,” but refrained from saying whether Minsk would follow suit and recognize the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics.
Officials in Kazakhstan whose president last month asked for a Russia-led security alliance to send troops to quell violent unrest, said the issue of recognizing the separatist regions was not on the country’s agenda.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev who’s in Moscow for talks with Putin, made no mention of Moscow’s recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk in his publicly broadcast remarks, but focused instead on bilateral relations.
Another Russian ally, Armenia, has so far issued no message of support for the Russian move.
Meanwhile, Putin sought to reassure Russia’s ex-Soviet allies that he doesn’t envision resurrecting the Soviet Union. He told the Azerbaijani president that speculation that Russia would attempt to restore its empire “is absolutely not true.”
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WASHINGTON — The White House has begun referring to Russian troop deployments in eastern Ukraine as an “invasion” after initially hesitating to use the term — a red line that President Joe Biden has said would result in the U.S. levying severe sanctions against Moscow.
Jon Finer, the principal deputy national security adviser, said Tuesday: “We think this is, yes, the beginning of an invasion, Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine." He said “latest” was important — “an invasion is an invasion and that is what is under way.”
The White House decided to begin referring to Russia’s actions as an “invasion” because of the situation on the ground, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The administration resisted initially calling the deployment of troops because the White House wanted to see what Russia was actually going to do. The official added that, after assessing Russian troop movements, it became clear it was a new invasion.
— By Aamer Madhani in Washington.
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BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary's defense minister says the military will deploy soldiers and equipment to the region near the Ukrainian border to prepare for potential humanitarian and border protection operations.
Defense Minister Tibor Benko said Prime Minister Viktor Orban ordered the military to mobilize along the country’s eastern border to prevent armed groups from potentially entering Hungarian territory, Hungarian state news agency MTI reported.
Benko said that he believed further escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could bring armed activity all the way to Ukraine's western border. He said Hungarian soldiers would need to be prepared for the possible arrival of Ukrainian refugees in the wake of a greater conflict.
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LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Britain is slapping sanctions on five Russian banks and three wealthy individuals over Russia’s latest military moves on Ukraine.
Johnson told lawmakers that sanctions would hit Rossiya Bank, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank.
He said three Russian oligarchs with interests in energy and infrastructure -- Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg and Igor Rotenberg -- will have their assets frozen and be banned from traveling to the U.K.
All three have already been sanctioned by the United States.
Johnson accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “establishing the pretext for a full-scale offensive” against Ukraine and said “further powerful sanctions” would follow if that happened.
“This the first tranche, the first barrage of what we are prepared to do and we hold further sanctions at readiness to be deployed,” Johnson told British lawmakers.
He also said that Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers have been spotted in the separatist Ukrainian regions recognized as independent by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said that amounts to “a renewed invasion” of Ukraine.
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BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Russian President Vladimir Putin may be looking for a pretext to occupy the whole of Ukraine.
Scholz said Tuesday that his and other countries made clear at a U.N. Security Council meeting that Moscow “has no support in the world” for its decision to recognize the independence of rebel-held regions in eastern Ukraine.
He said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “deserves our highest respect for his country not letting itself be provoked by Russia, because the Russian president is waiting for just that to have a pretext possibly to occupy all of Ukraine.”
Scholz made the comment during an appearance in Berlin at which he announced the suspension of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
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BERLIN — Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Germany has taken steps to halt the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia.
Scholz told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday that his government was taking the measure in response to Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.
The pipeline bringing natural gas from Russia to Germany has long been criticized by the United States and some European countries who argue that it increases Europe’s reliance on Russian energy supplies.
Scholz said that the government had decided to “reassess” the certification of the pipeline, which hasn’t begun operating yet.
“That will certainly take time, if I may say so,” he said.
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MOSCOW — Russia says its recognition of independence for areas in eastern Ukraine extends to territory currently held by Ukrainian forces.
The statement Tuesday further raises the stakes amid Western fears that Moscow could follow up on Monday’s recognition of rebel regions with a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia has recognized the rebel regions’ independence “in borders that existed when they proclaimed” their independence in 2014.
Ukrainian forces later reclaimed control of large part of both regions during a nearly eight-year conflict that has killed over 14,000 people.
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BELGRADE, Serbia - Most of the leaders in the war-scarred Balkans condemned Russia’s decision to recognize two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, while Serbia’s president said he fears pressure to join Western sanctions against his Kremlin allies.
″There are now many challenges (for Serbia) of political, security and economic nature,” Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic said. “The political pressures will be greater than ever.”
Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, who led the small Adriatic state to NATO membership in 2017 despite strong opposition from Russia, gave his support to Ukraine.
“Montenegro confirms its unanimous support of the independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders,” said Djukanovic.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic also slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision, as did Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa.
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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Russia’s decision to recognize two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine is “unacceptable” and is calling for a respect of international laws.
Speaking to Turkish journalists during a three-nation tour of Africa, Erdogan said the decision was a clear violation of Ukraine’s political unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“We consider this decision by Russia as being unacceptable,” Erdogan said. “We reiterate our call to the parties to respect common sense and international law.”
His comments were reported by Hurriyet newspaper and other media.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the Ukraine crisis at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
