Vladimir Putin addresses a staged meeting of Russia’s Security Council, Moscow, February 21, 2022. (Aleksey Nikolskyi/Sputnik/AP)

UPDATE, 1455 GMT:

The UK has launched sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, citing five banks and three individuals.

The measures covers Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank, Johnson said. The three individuals are Gennady Timchenko, Igor Rotenberg and Boris Rotenberg.

UPDATE, 1350 GMT:

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia will not be certified as “the situation has fundamentally changed”.

Scholz has ordered a new assessment of how Germany’s energy supplies can be secured.

The pipeline was completed last autumn but operations were suspended because of a German court order over regulatory compliance.

UPDATE, 1345 GMT:

Hungary has blocked a proposal by the EU’s foreign affairs branch, the European External action service (EEAS), to sanction 27 persons and entities in the Kremlin’s decision to recognise Russian proxy “republics” in east Ukraine; the 351 members of the Duma who voted for the recognition; the 11 legislators who proposed it; and the commanders of the Russian “peacekeepers”.

A diplomat said of the Victor Orbán Government in Budapest:

Orbán has now really shown his true colours. Again, this begs the question where Orbán loyalty is: to Moscow or his European allies? And the question of how much more of this blocking behaviour other leaders can swallow.

UPDATE, 1330 GMT:

Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks has said sanctions on Russia should “include everything which is economically painful”, including measures over energy, cutoff of Moscow from the SWIFT global transactions system, and personal targeting of oligarchs.

Speaking at an event in the UK, Pabriks said Britain should “certainly” clean up Russian dirty money in London.

He asked for help from the media to help persuade Germany, France, and Italy to support sanctions now: “If we are mild today, then instead of spilling money, we will spill blood, because [Putin] will not stop.”

Meeting his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv, Estonian President Alar Karis said:

It is a decisive moment in European history. President Putin will answer to future generations for his violent actions. As European and western leaders, we also have the responsibility to step up to our values [and] our commitment to a Europe that is united and at peace. We regret every single life lost.

It is our duty to protect our common values and the democracy we all helped to build. A threat to Ukraine is a threat to the security of Europe.

UPDATE, 1030 GMT:

China is carefully navigating Vladimir Putin’s aggression towards Ukraine.

all parties on the Ukraine issue to “remain calm, ease tensions and resolve differences through dialogue and negotiation”.

In a phone call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said “the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be respected”.

Over the weekend, Wang told the Munich Security Conference, “The sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of any country should be respected and safeguarded. Ukraine is no exception.”

UPDATE, 0930 GMT:

A sign of Russia’s economic vulnerability amid Vladimir Putin’s gamble on an invasion of Ukraine:

Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has backed a firm response by the European Union “hit Russia where it hurts”:

Russia is doing what it always wanted to do, take a piece of territory of Ukraine. We will respond in an appropriate way to what is happening here. It has to be appropriate sanctions, we have to keep a cool head, but we have to show that this leads to a high cost for Russia.

Lithuania’s deputy Europe minister Arnoldas Pranckevičius added, “How we react as the European Union will define our character and indeed the future of Europe,” calling for increased support to Ukraine and a revised defense posture in the Baltics as well as the sanctions against Russia.

These have to be serious, they have to be real, they should not be symbolic. If we want to deter further actions of President Putin, if we indeed want to stop the war from happening, we need to move ahead with serious measures.

Didier Reynders, the European Commissioner for Justice, indicates that the EU’s sanctions will be imposed gradually. He said they will begin with travel bans against individuals, followed by the seizing of assets.

Reynders said that Putin steps up the Russian invasion:

[It] will be necessary to ensure that there are no more imports of goods or services from Russia, such as energy, and that Russia’s global access to financial services is terminated.

Everything is on the table.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: In an emergency Security Council session, UN member states condemn Russia’s imminent invasion of Ukraine.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin set up the invasion on Monday with a staged meeting of the National Security Council. Speaker after speaker, including former President Dmitry Medvedev, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, called for the recognition of Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine as “independent republics”.

Hours later, Putin continued the performance with a televised statement upholding the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Lugansk People’s Republic”. He completed it with an order for almost 200,000 Russian military forces, who have massed along three sides of Ukraine, to enter the “republics” as “peacekeepers”.

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Addressing the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared, “We are not afraid.” He said Ukraine is expecting “clear and effective” steps from other countries to stand against Russia.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Putin’s steps have “no legal implications” and “sharply escalate the situation”:

The Ukrainian side understands Russia’s intentions and its objective to provoke Ukraine. We are taking into account all the risks and not giving in to the provocations as we remain committed to politico-diplomatic settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov added on Twitter:

“A Pretext for War”

In the Security Council, Ukraine’s ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said:

We are on our own land. We are not afraid of anything or anyone, we owe nothing to anyone and we will not give away anything to anyone. There should be no doubt whatsoever.

The international borders of Ukraine are and will remain unchangeable.

He called for the UN’s unified resolve behind Kyiv, for international order as well as Ukraine’s future: “The United Nations is sick. That’s a matter of fact. It has been hit by the virus spread by the Kremlin. Will it succumb to this virus?”

US representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield detailed Putin’s “series of outrageous, false claims…creating a pretext for war”:

He calls them peacekeepers. This is nonsense. We know what they really are….Putin wants to travel back to a time when empires ruled the world. This is not 1919.

The UK’s Barbara Woodward said:

The actions Russia has chosen today will have severe and far-reaching consequences. First, to human life. An invasion of Ukraine unleashes the forces of war, death and destruction on the people of Ukraine

Kenya’s Martin Kimani summarized that Russia has breached “the territorial integrity of Ukraine” and that security concerns could not justify Putin’s action. He continued with reference to his country’s history:

This situation echoes our history. Kenya and almost every African country was birthed by the ending of empire. Our borders were not of our own drawing….

Today across the border of every single African country live our countrymen with whom we share deep ethnic, cultural, and religious bonds.

At independence, had we to chosen to pursue states on the basis of ethnic, racial, or religious homogeneity, we would still be waging bloody wars these many decades later.

Russia’s Vasily Nebenzya claimed that he had been subjected to a “direct verbal assault” which would go “unanswered”. He insisted that it was the “West” which was “nudging” Ukraine towards conflict and “military adventure”.

Sanctions on Russia and Its Proxy “Republics”

The US said it would impose sanctions on Russia’s proxy “republics” in Ukraine. The UK and European Union went further with announcements of forthcoming sanctions on Moscow. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said, after speaking with the EU’s foreign policy head Josep Borrell, “We agreed that we will coordinate to deliver swift sanctions against Putin’s regime and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine.”

After Truss’s conversation with Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s call with Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy, London said it will “explore sending further defensive support to Ukraine”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also spoke with Kuleba and will meet the Ukrainian Foreign Minister in Washington on Tuesday.