Russia’s war against Ukraine Live coverage of Moscow’s full-scale invasion

Latest major developments in Russia and Ukraine

• America steps up: U.S. President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. would accept up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees to ease the burden on Ukraine’s neighbors, calling the crisis “an international responsibility.” About 3.6 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, causing some to criticize Biden’s offer as too small. The U.S. will also donate $1 billion in security assistance to Ukraine.
• Wrong building: Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov announced that the Mariupol city administration building had been taken over by Chechen troops. He posted a video on Telegram that showed Chechen fighters surrounding a building, including one flying the Chechen flag from the building’s roof. The video quickly spread through pro-Russian media outlets; the building shown, however, was the Levoberezhny District Prosecutor’s Office, not the Mariupol city administration building.
• Serious about sanctions: The G7 countries announced their commitment to reducing dependence on Russian energy companies. The leaders called on countries that produce oil and gas to “act responsibility and increase supplies to international markets,” adding that OPEC “must play a key role.” The group also reiterated its commitment to making sure the sanctions already imposed on Russia are carried out fully, including by working with other countries to prevent “evasion, circumvention and backfilling that seek to undercut or mitigate the effects of our sanctions.”
• First official prisoner exchange: Ukraine and Russia conducted their first official prisoner exchange since the war began. According to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine traded 10 soldiers for 10 Russian soldiers. Russia also returned 19 Ukrainian civilian sailors, who were captured as they tried to escape from Snake Island in the early days of the war, in exchange for 11 Russian sailors who were saved from a sinking ship by Ukrainian forces. 
• Still not convinced: The Russian Defense Ministry reported that Sergey Shoigu spoke with his Armenian counterpart Suren Papikyan by phone today. Shoigu’s whereabouts and health status recently came into question after journalists noticed the minister had not been seen in public since March 11. On Thursday, Russian state media published a video that showed Shoigu attending a video meeting of the National Security Council, but journalists from the Moscow Times and Mediazona reported that the video appears to be spliced together from old footage of Shoigu.
• Russia tries to supplant the hryvnia: Russia has begun trying to put Russian rubles into circulation in the Melitopol, the Zaporizhzhia, and the Kherson region in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation. UNIAN reported that Russian forces are attempting to limit imports of hryvnias, transition retail sales to rubles, and gather personal data from pensioners and social benefit recipients in order to pay them in rubles.
• Biden warns Putin: Joe Biden announced that if Russia uses chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, the U.S. will respond. “The nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use,” said Biden, who traveled to Brussels on Thursday to meet with NATO and EU leaders. Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of possessing the banned weapons with increasing frequency in recent weeks, leading many to suspect he plans to use them himself.
• New Canadian sanctions: Canada imposed new sanctions against 160 members of Russia’s Federation Council for “having facilitated and enabled violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity.” The country will ban the export of certain goods and technologies to Russia in the coming days “with the aim of undermining and eroding the capabilities of the Russian military.”
• Zelensky addresses G7: Volodymyr Zelensky addressed G7 leaders in a video call, warning them that Russia will “will not" stop at Ukraine if they succeed in the current war and criticizing NATO for not instituting a no-fly zone over Ukraine, something NATO leaders have repeatedly said is a non-starter. “Better to give Ukraine the weapons we need now than to search for weapons for other countries later — Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic states, Poland, and Central Asia countries,” Zelensky said.

Latest major developments in Russia and Ukraine

On the ground in Ukraine

• Russian warship destroyed: Ukrainian officials reported on Thursday that the military had destroyed a Russian landing ship, the Orsk, in the occupied port city of Berdyansk. The Ukrainian military also posted footage on social media that purportedly shows the Russian ship on fire. The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to comment on this information.
• The battle for Izyum: The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Thursday morning that its forces had taken control of Izyum — a city in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. In turn, Ukrainian officials told CNN that the battle for Izyum is “still going on.” 
• Displacement crisis continues: Russia’s war in Ukraine has displaced 4.3 million children — more than half of the country’s estimated child population, according to UNICEF. This includes more than 1.8 million children who have fled abroad as refugees and 2.5 million children who are displaced inside Ukraine. The UN Human Rights Office reports that 78 children have been killed and 105 have been injured in Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24. The actual toll is believed to be much higher. The Ukrainian authorities have reported 178 children killed and more than 172 wounded. 

The Russian economy

• Trading is back: The Moscow Stock Exchange partially resumed trading on Thursday, for the first time since February 28. Russia’s MOEX stock index rebounded over the course of the day, making early gains of more than 11 percent and closing at 4.4 percent. 
• More UK sanctions: The UK announced 65 new sanctions on Thursday, targeting key Russian industries, banks, and business elites. Restrictions were imposed on Russian Railways, the Wagner Group, and multiple defense companies, including Kronshtadt, the main producer of Russian drones. The sanctions also targeted six more banks, including Alfa Bank. Among the individuals sanctioned are Tinkoff bank founder Oleg Tinkov, Sberbank CEO German Gref, and Polina Kovaleva — the step daughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In addition, the UK sanctioned Galina Danilchenko, the Russian-installed puppet “mayor” of Melitopol, making her the first individual sanctioned for collaborating with Russian forces in Ukraine. 
• More U.S. sanctions: Washington also imposed new sanctions on Thursday over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. All 328 of Russia’s State Duma lawmakers have been added to the U.S. sanctions list, along with 48 Russian defense companies, and Sberbank CEO German Gref. 
• Anonymous strikes again: The Russian Central Bank was hacked on Thursday, according to a Twitter account linked to the hacker group Anonymous. The tweet also says that the group plans to leak some 35,000 files within 48 hours. Spokespeople for the Russian Central Bank told TASS that reports about the hack aren’t true.

Other news from Russia

• The return of Shoigu: On the heels of journalists pointing out that Sergey Shoigu hasn’t been seen in public since March 11, Russian state media has published a video of the defense minister attending a National Security Council meeting with President Vladimir Putin (albeit via video link). Also on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refuted media reports that Shoigu is suffering from health problems. 
• Google green-lights ‘non-news’: YouTube has unblocked two state-funded Russian media channels belonging to the Gosteleradiofond (the State Fund for Television and Radio Programs). In a comment quoted by RBC, YouTube’s parent company, Google, said that it has no intention of restricting access to Russian state media content that isn’t news. 
• Roskomnadzor red-lights Google News: Russia’s censorship agency blocked Google News on Wednesday, for providing access to “fake news” about Russia’s “special military operation” — the Kremlin’s euphemism for war — in Ukraine. This came at the request of the Russian Attorney General’s Office. 
• Fifth time’s a charm: Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency has extended the ban on flights to 11 airports in central and southern parts of the country until April 1. The ban affects the Anapa, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Gelendzhik, Krasnodar, Kursk, Lipetsk, Rostov-on-Don, Simferopol, and Elista airports. The flight ban has now been extended five times since it was first imposed on February 24.

Remembering slain journalist Oksana Baulina

On March 23, an air strike in Kyiv killed two civilians, one of whom was Oksana Baulina, a Russian investigative journalist and former activist at Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. News of Baulina’s death shocked her friends and colleagues in Russia’s news media and human rights community. On social media, people described their last interactions with her, often sharing screenshots of what proved to be their final correspondence.

Olga Shakina, a friend who now works for the media wing of the human rights group Department One, remembered Baulina in a message shared on the organization’s Telegram channel. Meduza translates that text below.

Eye witness accounts from Ukraine

A mother’s monologue

‘My prayers alone cannot save him’ As her son fights for besieged Mariupol, this Ukrainian mother refuses to give up hope

3 years ago

A mother’s monologue

‘My prayers alone cannot save him’ As her son fights for besieged Mariupol, this Ukrainian mother refuses to give up hope

3 years ago

photo report

Snapshots from underground A photographer captures life in Kharkiv’s subway station bomb shelters as shelling continues

3 years ago

photo report

Snapshots from underground A photographer captures life in Kharkiv’s subway station bomb shelters as shelling continues

3 years ago

Latest major developments in Russia and Ukraine

• Top Kremlin official resigns: Anatoly Chubais, Vladimir Putin’s Special Envoy for Relations with International Organizations, has resigned from his post and left the country. An associate of Putin’s since the 1990s, Chubais was largely responsible for Russia’s post-Soviet privatization drive. He has held top posts in both the private sector and the Russian government for all of Putin’s presidency, and is the highest-ranking official thus far to resign in protest of the war.
• Embassy spies: According to the Polish government, the EU has “expelled 45 Russian spies pretending to be diplomats” from Poland. While specific allegations have not been made publicly, a Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that the “illegal activities” of the expelled Russian officials “pose a threat to those people who left their country to flee the war and found protection in our country.” The diplomats were given five days to leave the country, with the exception of one person who was given only 48 hours. The Russian government denied the accusations.
• It's not called G19: Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia reported that Vladimir Putin intends to attend October’s G20 summit, despite recent discussions among other members about excluding him from the group of the world’s largest economies. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson supported continued Russian membership, calling for “multilateralism, unity, and cooperation,” and saying Russia is an “important member.”
• Russia can’t swim: Russian and Belarusian athletes have been suspended from participating in the FINA World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, which will be held in June and July 2022. In response, the All-Russian Swimming Federation announced that it will remove its athletes from all tournaments for the rest of the year.
• Putin and Scholz: Vladimir Putin spoke directly with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday. While details from the Kremlin were sparse, Die Zeit reports that Scholz warned Putin that the use of biological or chemical weapons in Ukraine would be “unacceptable and unforgivable.” The topic was the result of recent Russian claims that the Ukrainian or American governments might use such weapons in the near future, which seemed to Scholz “like an implicit threat that Putin himself is considering using such weapons.”
• Belarusian-Ukrainian relations get worse: Belarus expelled almost all Ukrainian diplomats on Wednesday; only the ambassador and four diplomats will be allowed to stay and work in the country. As a result, the Ukrainian Consulate General in Brest will be closed. Belarus has maintained close relations with Russia since the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine.

A satellite image of Mariupol, a city that's been under Russian fire for 27 days.

Latest major developments in Russia and Ukraine

• Muratov donates his Nobel: Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov, who received a Nobel Peace Prize last year for his “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression” in Russia, will auction the medal and donate the proceeds to an NGO that supports Ukrainian refugees. In a statement, the paper called for the Kremlin to do five things immediately: “Stop combat fire, exchange prisoners, release the bodies of the dead, provide humanitarian corridors and assistance, and support refugees.”
• Navalny... 2036?: Moscow's Lefortovo Court sentenced Alexey Navalny to nine years in a high-security penal colony and fined 1.2 million rubles (about $11,500) for fraud and contempt of court. He stood trial remotely from the penal colony in Vladimir Region, where he is serving his sentence from previous charges. After the sentencing hearing, Navalny released a statement on social media calling for his followers to keep working: “The numbers don’t mean anything. They’re just a sign above the bunks, that’s all they are. And neither I nor my comrades are going to sit around and wait.”
• First rape charges of the war: The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office announced a criminal case against an unnamed Russian serviceman for violating the law and customs of war. The suspect and his fellow soldier allegedly broke into a home in Kyiv’s Brovary district while intoxicated, killed the homeowner, and raped the man’s wife multiple times, threatening her and her child. The woman and her child are now safe, and the subject has been put on the wanted list. According to Ukrainian parliament member Inna Sovsun, this marks the first time since the war began that a civilian has officially accused Russian soldiers of rape, though there have been rumors.
• A lot even after inflation: Russian citizens withdrew 1.2 trillion rubles (about $11.3 billion) from banks in February — a 14-year record.
• New ‘fake news’ law moves forward: The Russian State Duma approved a bill that would further crack down on “fake news” about Russian governmental activities abroad. Under the new legislation, which will go to the Federation Council for approval, anybody who spreads news about the Russian army, the National Guard, Russian embassies, or other state agencies’ operations outside of Russia could face a fine of up to 1.5 million rubles (about $14,000) and up to 15 years in prison.
• Have some more sanctions: The U.S. announced new sanctions against Russia. The measures would target 300 members of the Russian State Duma and would be passed in tandem with sanctions from the E.U.
• Any day now: Google is preparing for further crackdowns in Russia, including a possible ban on YouTube, Bloomberg reported. The company has assisted its Russia-based staff who wanted to relocate in recent weeks, and its advertising business has already been suspended, depriving Russian YouTubers of consumer revenue. Google also temporarily suspended the Russian military’s account after it referred to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “liberation mission.” There are currently no signs that the Russian government plans to block Google’s search function.

Latest major developments in Russia and Ukraine

• A servant of the people: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says any compromise with Russia on the status of Crimea and the Donbas would depend ultimately on the results of a nationwide referendum. Zelensky also argued that NATO refuses to admit Ukraine because its members fear Russia, and this means Kyiv must seek alternative security guarantees.
• Counting Ukraine’s dead: The latest estimates by the United Nations confirm the deaths of 975 civilians in Ukraine, including 75 children. Thousands more are reportedly dead in the besieged city of Mariupol.
• Russia bans Facebook and Instagram: After a court in Moscow granted prosecutors’ request to designate Meta as an “extremist” organization, Russia’s federal censor ordered news media organizations to stop displaying the logos of Meta, Facebook, and Instagram. Journalists in compliance with Russian state censorship must now indicate in news coverage that Meta has been banned in Russia as an “extremist” group. (Separately, Roskomnadzor also blocked the television network Euronews.)
• The disappearing casualty tally: An article published online by Komsomolskaya Pravda claimed briefly that Russia’s Defense Ministry admitted to nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers dying in Ukraine. The report’s original text did not include this information and the edited version remained live for several hours before the information was removed (along with two paragraphs from the original text about the death of Russian naval captain Andrey Paliy and the destruction of two “mercenary” camps outside Zhytomyr in Ukraine). The tabloid later said its website was hacked.
• At the brink: Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan to warn that President Biden’s recent comments about Putin being a “pure thug” and “murderous dictator” have brought Washington and Moscow to the brink of a full break in diplomatic relations.
• Don’t call it a purge: Members of the Just Russia — For Truth political party launched an online project to petition Federal Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin about fellow Russian citizens suspected of anti-state activities. The party says it’s already requested inquiries into how Channel One hired Marina Ovsyannikova (the woman who protested the war in Ukraine by interrupting a live news broadcast), how Russian Railways selected a Spanish company to service its Strizh train line, and more. “The time has come to build the state’s personnel policy on a wave of patriotism. This isn’t about purges; it’s about love for the country,” says the website. (In a related event, Channel One deputy general director Kirill Kleimyonov denounced his former colleague Ovsyannikova in a televised statement, accusing her of communicating with British diplomats before her protest.)
• A treason case long in the making begins: Proceedings in the treason case against journalist Ivan Safronov have begun in Moscow. The trial is closed to the public, and journalists’ access to information about the case is limited to what they can learn from defense attorneys, who are bound by non-disclosure requirements. Safronov reportedly stands accused of passing classified information to Czech intelligence agencies working with the United States. Police arrested Safronov back in July 2020 and he has been imprisoned ever since.

Latest major developments, 4:45 p.m. Moscow time (9:45 a.m., EST)

• Another curfew in Kyiv: Beginning this evening, Kyiv will be under an intensified curfew for at least a day and a half. The curfew will begin at 8:00 p.m., local time, on March 21, and remain in place until 7:00 a.m. on March 23, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko announced on Telegram. All shops will be closed during the curfew and residents are urged to stay at home unless prompted by air raid sirens to move to bomb shelters. On Monday, Ukrainian officials reported that at least eight people had been killed in Kyiv after Russian shelling destroyed the Retroville shopping mall. 
• No surrender in Mariupol: The Ukrainian authorities have rejected a proposal from Russia that their forces surrender Mariupol and lay down their arms, in exchange for safe passage out of the city. The Ukrainian side responded by demanding that Russia immediately open a humanitarian corridor for civilian evacuations. 
• ‘Insignificant’ ammonia leak in Sumy: Early on Monday morning, authorities in Sumy reported that Russian shelling had caused an ammonia leak at a local chemical plant. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service later assured that the leak was “insignificant” and didn’t pose a threat to local residents. In turn, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that “Ukrainian nationalists” had carried out a “planned provocation” in Sumy. 
• Putin’s ‘Plan B’?: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is now shifting to “plan B,” senior officials in the Biden administration told the Wall Street Journal on Monday. These officials believe that Putin now intends “to compel Kyiv to accept Russian claims to Ukraine’s southern and eastern territories.” This could mean “weeks [or] possibly months” of continued attacks, officials warned, though they added an assault on Kyiv remains an “open question.” The British Defense Ministry maintains that seizing Ukraine’s capital is still Moscow’s primary military objective, and predicts that the Russian military will likely continue its attempts to encircle the city. 
• Slovenian solidarity: Slovenia intends to send its diplomats back to Kyiv in the near future, Prime Minister Janez Jansa announced on Sunday, March 20. Jansa is also urging other EU countries to follow suit, as a show of support for Ukraine. 

New podcast episode 🎧

On defections from Channel One

read more

'I was taught that every life is priceless' After 24 years at Russia’s main state news network, Dmitry Likin resigned last week. He explained his decision to Meduza.

3 years ago

read more

'I was taught that every life is priceless' After 24 years at Russia’s main state news network, Dmitry Likin resigned last week. He explained his decision to Meduza.

3 years ago

read more

‘The cognitive dissonance became unbearable’ Meduza’s interview with former state TV employee Marina Ovsyannikova

3 years ago

read more

‘The cognitive dissonance became unbearable’ Meduza’s interview with former state TV employee Marina Ovsyannikova

3 years ago

Latest major developments, 6:45 a.m., Moscow time (11:45 p.m., EST)

• No Russian parties (for now): Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council has decided to ban several political parties with links to Russia while martial law is in effect. The banned parties include the Opposition Platform — For Life, led by close Putin ally Viktor Medvedchuk, and Nashi (Ours), led by Yevhen Murayev. The British authorities reported in January that the Russian government was considering installing Murayev as Ukraine’s new leader.
• Paper problems: School administrators in St. Petersburg have proposed postponing upcoming standardized tests due to a paper shortage. On March 1, Finnish chemical company Kemire stopped providing sodium chlorate, used to turn paper white, to Russia and Belarus. The following day, Russian paper manufacturer SvetoCopy stopped producing A4 paper. As a result, the price of paper has skyrocketed in Russia in recent weeks.
• Truth tellers: Since February 24, more than 15 thousand people have been arrested in Russia for protesting against the war in Ukraine, according to the independent monitoring group OVD-Info. Some have gotten off with a warning, others have received fines, while others have served time behind bars. A number of protesters, like 77-year-old Yelena Osipova, have been arrested multiple times.
• VK gets personal: The Russian social media platform VKontakte has started blocking users’ personal pages. A number of users received a message that cited the Russia Attorney General’s order requiring pages that knowingly spread “false publicly significant information that threatens to harm citizens’ lives or health, or threatens to massively disrupt the public order and (or) public security” to be blocked. Multiple independent news outlets’ accounts on the social network have been blocked based on the same order.
• Eight days in captivity: Ukrainian journalist Oleg Baturin has been released by his Russian kidnappers. Baturin’s sister told Hromadske that he was in captivity for almost eight days. “They humiliated him,” she said. “Threatened him. Told them they would kill him. For almost eight days. Held hostage for 187 hours. Practically no food. Several days with almost no water. No soap, no change of clothes. [...] They wanted to break him, to trample on him. To show what will happen to all journalists.” Another Ukrainian journalist, Viktoria Roshchina, is reportedly still being held captive by Russian forces. None of her colleagues have heard from her since March 12.
• The 600-hour workday: After effectively being held prisoner since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, 64 Chernobyl employees were allowed to leave the defunct nuclear plant on Sunday. Over the course of their 600 hours of work, the employees worked to keep the facility’s nuclear waste facilities functioning, including after a power outage that resulted from Russian shelling and carried the risk of radiation leaks. The 64 workers were replaced by 46 “employee-volunteers.”
• Hope it was worth it: The International Gymnastics Federation has demanded the disqualification of Russian gymnast Ivan Kulyak, who wore the letter Z on his uniform at a March 6 competition in Qatar where he competed against gymnasts from Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The letter has become a symbol of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Major developments on Friday, March 18, 2022

• Putin appears unto the people: Roughly 200,000 specially invited guests (mostly state employees, according to reports) attended a concert at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow to celebrate the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The highlight of the event was a speech by Vladimir Putin. Television viewers didn’t see the end of the president’s remarks, however, as the transmission abruptly cut away to prerecorded footage of a performance by singer Oleg Gazmanov. The Kremlin attributed the incident to a technical error. In his speech, Putin repeated unfounded allegations that the Ukrainian government committed “genocide” against ethnic Russians. Describing Russians soldiers dying for each other on the battlefield, he said, “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen such unity.” Journalists at The Moscow Times reported that Putin made this speech while wearing a jacket made by the Italian clothing company Loro Piana that retails for almost $15,000.
• Don’t be like her dad: The pro-invasion rally at Luzhniki Stadium also featured a speech by the actor Vladimir Mashkov, who accused Russian liberals of being “backstabbers” beholden to Europe and the United States. In an Instagram post, Mashkov’s daughter Maria mocked her father’s remarks, calling herself a “politically correct minion of the West” and comparing him to Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s father, who fought for the Nazis. “I don’t want you to be broken like my father,” the film star and former governor recently told Russians in an impassioned video shared online.
• The war’s devastation, by the numbers: Artillery strikes on Friday against neighborhoods in Kyiv killed at least one person and injured another 19, including four children. Throughout the war, 109 children are known to have been killed and more than 130 have been injured, according to Ukrainian officials. So far, the United Nations has confirmed 816 civilian deaths and 1,333 injured civilians. The local authorities in the besieged city of Mariupol, however, say that Russian attacks have killed 2,358 noncombatants in their city alone. The UN says there are now 6.5 million internally displaced persons in Ukraine, 3.2 million Ukrainians have fled the country, and more than 12 million people are “stranded in affected areas or unable to leave due to heightened security risks.” Ukraine’s pre-war population was 44 million people.
• The FSB grabs a Ukrainian journalist: Russian soldiers have abducted reporter Victoria Roshchyna, who was working in conflict zones in eastern and southern Ukraine. Her news organization, Hromadske, says she was likely taken into custody on March 15, and her current whereabouts remain unknown.
• No more cooking shows. No more game shows: Two of Russia’s biggest state television networks, Channel One and Rossiya 1, have dropped all entertainment programming between 5 a.m. and midnight and devoted their entire broadcasting lineup to talk-show propaganda in support of the invasion of Ukraine.
• The Kremlin’s woman in robes: Vladimir Putin issued an executive decree promoting Judge Margarita Kotova to the Moscow City Court. Kotova is currently presiding over the latest trial against opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who faces dubious new charges that will likely add 13 years to his prison sentence, once Kotova issues her verdict. Researchers working with Navalny’s investigative team in exile recently obtained Kotova’s telephone call records and learned that she has been in constant communication with members of the Putin administration throughout Navalny’s trial.
• Already expanding the speech restrictions only just adopted: Lawmakers in the State Duma are moving forward with amendments to Russia’s recent “criminalization of fake news” about the military, planning to expand this censorship to “disinformation” about any Russian state entity that engages in “defending Russians’ interests abroad” (such as the Foreign Ministry and its embassies, the National Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and so on).
• Time is running out for YouTube: Russia is likely days or even hours away from blocking YouTube. The federal censor has issued multiple complaints about restrictions and suspensions imposed on Russian state-run and Kremlin-loyal channels, and the authorities have even accused Google of “terrorist” actions. The nation’s vloggers are reportedly hurrying to move their content to Telegram, Vkontakte, and RuTube. The latter service practices “pre-moderation,” reviewing all videos before they can be shared online. Independent journalists discovered last year that it is virtually impossible to post videos like Alexey Navalny’s investigation into President Putin’s seaside “palace” in Gelendzhik.

The official broadcast of the concert marking the anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium was interrupted during Vladimir Putin’s speech.

Putin was in the middle of a sentence about the birthday of one of Russia’s military leaders when the broadcast cut off. When it returned, the screen showed earlier footage of a singer performing a patriotic song.

Before being interrupted, Putin said that Russia had “done quite a lot to improve Crimea and Sevastopol,” and that Russia had had to pull them out of the sorry state Ukraine had left them in. He also said that the goal of the “special military operation” in Ukraine is to “rid people of genocide,” quoting the Gospel of John: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

According to a correspondent from Kommersant who was there, the event ended after Putin finished his speech.

Several minutes after the interruption, Putin’s speech was broadcast again, this time in its entirety.

Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the interruption was due to a “technical error on the server.”

Latest major developments, 2:50 p.m., Moscow time (7:50 a.m., EST)

• Very normal country: Rallies and events are being held throughout Russia today to celebrate the anniversary of the “reunification” of Crimea. The government is sponsoring a show in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, which can hold over 80,000 people. In Sevastopol, the day began with a ride by the Night Wolves, a motorcycle gang that has actively supported Putin and participated in his events for years.
• An awkward week for Germany: In a conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday, Vladimir Putin complained that Ukrainian representatives have been making “unrealistic proposals” and trying to “draw out the negotiation process,” while Russia is “ready to work faster” to come to an agreement. This was despite reports earlier in the week that significant progress was being reached between the two countries. For his part, Scholz told Putin a ceasefire is necessary and that the humanitarian situation needs to be improved. In a speech to Germany’s parliament earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the country of helping Russia “build a new wall” by purchasing Russian petroleum while simultaneously declining Ukraine’s request to join the EU.
• How low can they go: State Duma deputies from Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, have drafted amendments to the Russian Criminal Code and Code of Administrative Offenses that would further limit what information can be spread about Russia’s activities abroad. “We’re proposing criminal charges for the spread of fake news (public dissemination of information known to be false) not only about the army, but also about any other state agencies working abroad,” said Deputy Alexander Khinshtein. The amendment may be considered by the State Duma’s information policy committee as early as next week.
• Not out of the woods: According to Ukrainian human rights officer Lyudmila Denisova, 130 people have been rescued from the bomb shelter under the Mariupol theater that was bombed by Russian forces on Wednesday, but over 1300 are still stuck below the wreckage. Ukrainian authorities have reported that the lack of remaining social services in the city due to Russia’s continuous shelling is hindering rescue efforts.
• The fight against inflation: Russia’s Central Bank kept its interest rate at 20% on Friday, saying the high rate had “helped sustain financial stability.” The rate was at 9.5% until late Friday, when the bank raised it to record levels to protect the economy from inflation triggered by international sanctions. According to a statement, the bank is aiming for an inflation rate of 4% by 2024.
• Death in the capital: 222 people have died in Kyiv since the war in Ukraine began, according to the authorities there. In addition, 889 people have been injured, 241 of whom were civilians, including 18 children, three ambulance drivers, and one EMT. 55 buildings have been damaged, including 36 residential buildings, six schools, and four kindergartens.