Germany readying to block airspace to Russia
Germany is preparing to close its airspace to Russian aircraft, the latest European country to take that step since Russia attacked Ukraine this week.
Germany’s transportation minister, Volker Wissing, supports the move and has ordered preparations to be made, the transportation ministry tweeted.
The United Kingdom, Romania and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are among the countries that have either closed or announced plans to close their airspace to Russian aircraft.
Also Saturday, German airline Lufthansa said it will not use Russian airspace for the next seven days “due to the current and emerging regulatory situation.”
Flights that were in Russian airspace would leave, it said, and all flights to Russia will be suspended.
U.S. and key allies kick select Russian banks out of SWIFT payment system
The U.S., European Union, United Kingdom and Canada on Saturday announced that select Russian banks would be removed from the SWIFT payment system, a move that Ukraine had pushed allies for in recent days.
“We will hold Russia to account and collectively ensure that this war is a strategic failure for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” the joint statement read. “This past week, alongside our diplomatic efforts and collective work to defend our own borders and to assist the Ukrainian government and people in their fight, we, as well as our other allies and partners around the world, imposed severe measures on key Russian institutions and banks, and on the architects of this war, including” Putin.
“As Russian forces unleash their assault on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, we are resolved to continue imposing costs on Russia that will further isolate Russia from the international financial system and our economies,” the statement continued. “We will implement these measures within the coming days.”
The allies said they “commit to ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system,” will impose “restrictive measures that will prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact of our sanctions,” and that they “commit to acting against the people and entities who facilitate the war in Ukraine and the harmful activities of the Russian government.”
On that last bit, the group of nations said they will take “measures to limit the sale of citizenship — so-called golden passports — that let wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government become citizens of our countries and gain access to our financial systems.”
The nations said they will launch a task force this week to ensure the implementation of the sanctions and identify and freeze assets of sanctioned people and companies within each of their jurisdictions.
Biden admin may back hitting Russia’s access to SWIFT if European allies agree
Carol E. Lee, Kristen Welker, Andrea Mitchell and Josh Lederman
1h ago / 10:10 PM UTC
The Biden administration would be supportive of taking aim at Russia through SWIFT, a service that facilitates global transactions among thousands of financial institutions if there is consensus among America’s European allies, people familiar with the discussions signaled on Saturday.
Asked whether the U.S. is seriously considering the measure if European allies are open to it, an administration official said, “As the president and [administration] officials have made clear, we are focused on coordinating with allies and partners to impose further costs on Putin for his war of choice.”
A European diplomat said one reason for the administration’s previous reluctance to push publicly for targeting Russia’s access to SWIFT has largely centered on concerns that doing so would expose and call attention to divisions among the allies about taking the step. The person said the Biden administration has been trying to sell the notion that the U.S. and European allies are in total lock-step and has not wanted to get ahead of where the Europeans are at on SWIFT.
Russian police detain conflict demonstrator in a night of protests
Ukrainian ambassador to U.S. says country sending accusations of war crimes to The Hague
Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., said Saturday that her government is sending its allegations of Russian war crimes to The Hague, home of the International Criminal Court.
Within the past couple of days, Russian forces have levied attacks against “kindergartens” and “orphanages,” she said at a press conference, noting that children have been injured and killed across the country.
“We are collecting all of this, we have recorded all of this, we have preserved all of this,” she said. “And we will immediately transmit this to The Hague.”
“Responsibility for these actions is inevitable,” Markarova added.
Cryptocurrency donations pour in after Ukraine puts out call on Twitter
Ukraine’s government received more than $4 million in cryptocurrency on Saturday shortly after it began directly soliciting funds on social media, according to its accounts’ public transactions.
Ukraine’s official Twitter account, as well as its minister for digital transformation, tweeted Crypto wallet addresses where people can donate their bitcoin, ethereum and tether, a cryptocurrency whose value is tied to the U.S. dollar.
Within a few hours, those addresses had received more than $761,949 of bitcoin and more than $3.4 million worth of ethereum, the account showed.
Texas governor asks businesses to voluntarily stop selling Russian-made products
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted Saturday afternoon that he has asked businesses in the state to “voluntarily remove” all Russian products from their offerings.
Top Ukrainian official says holding down Kharkiv
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the head of the presidential office in Ukraine, said Ukrainian forces are holding firm in Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine.
Arestovych also claimed Russian troops have taken an “operational pause” for the time being due to losses on the battlefield.
NBC News has not independently confirmed the pause.
Conservative radio host offers rare criticism of Putin at CPAC
Conservative radio host Mark Levin ripped into Russian President Vladimir Putin Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando — breaking from the meeting’s near-silence on the Russian autocrat.“
He’s a killer,” Levin said, warning that Putin’s appetite for expansion is unquenchable.
“He’s looking well beyond Ukraine,” Levin said. “He’s not even talking about [stopping at] the Soviet Empire.”
Zelenskyy asks U.N. Secretary General to strip Russia of Security Council vote
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a tweet Saturday he asked United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres during a call to strip Russia of its vote on the Security Council.
Guterres did not mention the request in the summary of his call with Zelenskyy. A U.N. spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution Friday that demanded Moscow end its attack on Ukraine and withdraw its troops. Eleven nations voted in favor of the measure and China and two others abstained, while Russia was the lone country to vote no.
As a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Russia holds veto power over all resolutions made by the international body.
Russian owner of Chelsea FC gives ‘stewardship’ of club to charitable foundation
The Russian owner of Chelsea Football Club, one of the flagship soccer teams in Europe, said Saturday that he is handing the “stewardship and care” of the team to the club’s charitable foundation.
Roman Abramovich, a Russian billionaire and Putin ally who bought Chelsea in 2003, said in a statement posted to the team’s website that he viewed his role as a “custodian of the club.”
“I have always taken decisions with the Club’s best interest at heart,” he wrote. “I remain committed to these values. That is why I am today giving trustees of Chelsea’s charitable Foundation the stewardship and care of Chelsea FC.”
It’s was not immediately clear exactly what the change would mean for the team or if it would change his ownership status.
