Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine early Thursday local time.

In the address, broadcast on Russian national television, Putin urged Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms and go home, saying all responsibility for possible bloodshed will be entirely on the conscience of the Ukrainian government.

But he added: “Our plans are not to occupy Ukraine, we do not plan to impose ourselves on anyone.”
Putin’s speech came as concerns mounted of an imminent full-scale Russian invasion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an emotional speech early Thursday that the Russian leadership had approved military action in Ukraine and vowed the country would defend itself.

Russian troops have moved into the eastern region of Ukraine that Russia has now recognized as “independent,” according to the Prime Minister of NATO member Latvia and sources familiar with the latest US intelligence assessments.

“According to the information at my disposal, Putin is moving additional forces and tanks into the occupied Donbas territories,” Latvian Prime Minister Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Wednesday. “By any definition that’s a crossing of a sovereign territory into a neighboring country.”

Pressed specifically on whether he was referring to the entry of additional Russian troops since Moscow recognized the two separatist regions earlier this week, Kariņš replied: “Yes, according to the information at my disposal, this is exactly what we’re seeing.”

Two other sources familiar with US intelligence confirmed to CNN that additional Russian troops have in fact crossed the border into the Donbas region since Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the two regions and issued an order deploying “peacekeepers” into the Donbas on Tuesday. According to a senior US official familiar with the latest intelligence, Russia has deployed one to two so-called battalion tactical groups, Russia’s main combat formation, each of which comprise an average of about 800 troops.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russia could start “a major war in Europe” any day now, and called on Russians to oppose it.

In a late-night address, he said he had unsuccessfully sought talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I initiated a telephone call with the president of the Russian federation. Result: silence,” Mr Zelensky said.

He said Russia had almost 200,000 troops and thousands of combat vehicles on Ukraine’s borders.
And switching from Ukrainian into Russian, Mr Zelensky made an emotional appeal to Russians to reject an attack, saying they were being lied to about Ukraine.

Several signals suggest President Joe Biden is moving closer to picking someone to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, as the White House quickly approaches its self-imposed deadline to announce a nominee before the end of the month.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday that there was no circumstance in which Biden would hold his announcement of a Supreme Court nominee after February, suggesting the ongoing crisis in Ukraine hasn’t derailed their goal.

Multiple sources have told CNN Biden that has already met with three potential Supreme Court nominees, each of whom could become the first Black woman nominated to the bench. The women under consideration are Ketanji Brown Jackson, who sits on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia; Leondra Kruger, who sits on the California Supreme Court; and J. Michelle Childs, who sits on the US District Court for the District of South Carolina.

Several Ukrainian government websites were offline Wednesday as a result of a mass distributed denial of service attack, Mykhailo Fedorov, head of Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, said in his Telegram channel.

The attack, which also impacted some banks, began around 4 p.m. local time, according to Fedorov. He didn’t say which banks were attacked or what the extent of the damage was.

Websites for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cabinet of Ministers and Rada, the country’s parliament, were among those down as of Wednesday morning Eastern time. The government sites were offline as officials attempted to switch traffic elsewhere to minimize damage, he said.

Ukraine will introduce a nationwide state of emergency in which special restrictions will apply in order to keep the country calm and protect its economy amid fears of a Russian invasion, a senior Ukrainian security official said on Wednesday.

The state of emergency will last for 30 days and can be extended for another 30 days, Oleksiy Danilov told a briefing. Parliament must now vote to enact the decision.

Introducing a state of emergency gives powers to the authorities, who can choose which ones to implement. These could include restrictions on transport, extra protection for critical infrastructure and a ban on strikes.

It took only 24 hours for Donald Trump to hail Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dismembering of independent, democratic, sovereign Ukraine as an act of “genius.”

The former President often accuses his enemies falsely of treason, but his own giddy rush to side with a foreign leader who is proving to be an enemy of the United States and the West is shocking even by Trump’s self-serving standards.

As President Joe Biden reprises the fabled presidential role of leading the free world, the predecessor who wants to succeed him is showing Putin that impunity, dictator-coddling and hero worship will return if he wins back the White House. Trump’s remarks on a conservative radio show on Tuesday will not only find a warm welcome in the Kremlin. They also will concern allies standing alongside the US against Russia who fear for NATO’s future if Trump returns.

Trump also sent an unmistakable message to Republicans, who are already playing into Putin’s hands by branding the current President as weak, that siding with a US foe is the way into the ex-President’s affections ahead of this year’s midterm primaries.

Two years after Ahmaud Arbery’s killing in Georgia, justice has been delivered after three men convicted in his murder were found guilty in federal court Tuesday for pursuing him out of racial animus, his family says.

“This hate crime trial actually showed the world what was going on in the minds of the murderers who killed Ahmaud, their state of mind, what type of people they really were,” Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, told CNN’s Don Lemon on Tuesday.

The White men – Travis McMichael and his father Gregory McMichael, along with neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan – pursued Arbery, who was Black, in the Satilla Shores neighborhood outside Brunswick before Travis McMichael shot him during a struggle over McMichael’s shotgun on February 23, 2020.

In their federal hate crimes trial, the three were convicted on a hate crime charge of interference of rights in addition to attempted kidnapping. The McMichaels also were convicted of gun charges.

Russia began evacuating its embassy in Kyiv, and Ukraine urged its citizens to leave Russia on Wednesday as the region braced for further confrontation after President Vladimir Putin received authorization to use military force outside his country and the West responded with sanctions.

Hopes for a diplomatic way out of a new, potentially devastating war in Europe appeared all but sunk as the U.S. and key European allies accused Moscow on Tuesday of crossing a red line in rolling over Ukraine’s border into separatist regions — with some calling it an invasion.

Russia began pulling personnel from its diplomatic posts in Ukraine, state news agency Tass reported, a day after the Foreign Ministry announced a plan to evacuate, citing threats. By Wednesday afternoon, the Russian flag was no longer flying over the embassy in Kyiv, according to an Associated Press photographer. Police surrounded the building.

The new US sanctions triggered by Russian’s latest actions in Ukraine included targets that in the past have gone untouched: the family members of those in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

By designating the sons of two powerful players close to the Russian President, the Biden administration sent a clear signal that its target list for individual sanctions extends beyond public officials and financiers as part of a new effort to shut down pathways for top Putin associates to shield their wealth by giving it to family members.

Denis Bortnikov and Vladimir Kiriyenko, both designated for individual sanctions by the Treasury Department on Tuesday, hold their own prominent positions in Russian business. But both will now have any US-held assets frozen and be barred from dealing with any US persons solely because their fathers serve as Putin’s domestic intelligence chief and as one of Putin’s closest advisers, respectively.

Uganda has proposed steep penalties for anti-vaxxers in a new bill being studied by parliament, as the country doubles down on its Covid-19 vaccine mandate.

A parliamentary health committee said Tuesday it was considering proposed legislation to fine or imprison unvaccinated people in the East African country of around 45 million people.

“Parliament’s Committee on Health has started the consideration of the Public Health (Amendment) Bill, 2021 that among other things seeks to ensure mandatory COVID-19 vaccination,” the parliament said in a statement on its website.

“According to the proposal, those who do not get vaccinated against Covid-19 will be fined Shs 4 million (around $1,137) or a jail term of six months.”

Uganda has administered around 16 million Covid vaccines since it began inoculation against the virus in March last year. But the country has grappled with a series of lockdowns to manage the pandemic amid misinformation and hesitancy towards Covid vaccines by anti-vaxxers.

The West showed Tuesday it was ready to target Russia’s huge energy industry — even at the risk of hurting itself — after Moscow ordered troops into parts of eastern Ukraine.

Germany said it was halting certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline following Moscow’s actions in eastern Ukraine on Monday.

“With regard to the latest developments, we need to reassess the situation also with regard to Nord Stream 2. It sounds very technocratic but it is the necessary administrative step in order to stop certification of the pipeline,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Berlin.

The 750-mile pipeline was completed in September but has not yet received final certification from German regulators. Without that, natural gas cannot flow through the Baltic Sea pipeline from Russia to Germany.