Firefighters walk through debris as a building burns after Russian strikes on Zhytomyr, near Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, March 1, 2022

See also Why A “Neutral” Ukraine Is A Non-Starter

EA on BBC, ANews, and The Pat Kenny Show: Russia Runs Into Trouble Over Ukraine Invasion

Tuesday’s Coverage:Facing Isolation and Sanctions, Putin Steps Up His War

UPDATE 1735 GMT:

The UN General Assembly has voted 141-5, with 35 abstentions, to deplore Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to call for the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces.

The General Assembly convened in the emergency session, its first in 40 years, after Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning its attacks.

The non-binding resolution, co-sponsored by 94 countries, demanded that “the Russian Federation immediately cease its use of force against Ukraine” and “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces”.

UPDATE 1610 GMT:

More than 2,000 civilians have been killed since the start of the Russian invasion, according to Ukrainian emergency services.

The services noted that hundreds of structures including transport facilities, hospitals, kindergartens, and homes have been destroyed.

There are more than 800,000 Ukrainian refugees, more than half of them in Poland.

UPDATE 1600 GMT:

Russian forces have occupied the area around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.

The complex is Europe’s power plant, with six of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear energy reactors.

Ukrainian citizens are reportedly blocking roads leading to the power plant, with video posted on social media showing Ukrainians building makeshift roadblocks near the city of Energodar, where the Zaporizhzhia plant is located.

On the southern coast, the port city of Mariupol is enduring mass casualties and a water outage amid constant Russian attacks.

Mayor Vadym Boichenko said the Russian attacks were “flattening us non-stop for 12 hours now”:

The enemy occupying forces of the Russian Federation have done everything to block the exit of civilians from the city of half a million people.

We cannot even take the wounded from the streets, from houses and apartments today, since the shelling does not stop.

UPDATE 1155 GMT:

China will not join the international financial sanctions on Russia.

Guo Shuqing, the chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said:

We will not join such sanctions, and we will keep normal economic, trade and financial exchanges with all the relevant parties.

We disapprove of the financial sanctions, particularly those launched unilaterally, because they don’t have much legal basis and will not have good effects.

UPDATE 0820 GMT:

Russia has withdrawn an attempt to send four of its warships through Turkish waters into the Black Sea, according to Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.

Çavuşoğlu said Moscow’s decision was made before last weekend’s announcement by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan indicating that Ankara will limit movement of Russian warships through the Dardanelles and Bosporus Straits under a 1936 treaty.

At least four Russian ships – two destroyers, a frigate, and an intelligence vessel were awaiting a Turkish decision on whether they could cross from the Mediterranean.

UPDATE 0800 GMT:

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has responded to Russia’s strike on the Babin Yar Memorial, the site of a World War II massacre of Jews by German occupation troops and Ukrainian auxiliaries:

This strike proves that for many people in Russia our Kyiv is absolutely foreign.

They don’t know a thing about Kyiv, about our history. But they all have orders to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all.

The President claimed that almost 6,000 Russian troops have been killed since their invasion was launched last Thursday.

UPDATE 0755 GMT:

Russia has attacked a police center and university in Kharkiv with missiles, setting the buildings ablaze. A hospital in the north of the city was also reportedly struck.

Four people have been killed and nine wounded, a local official said.

UPDATE 0740 GMT:

Russia’s stock market is closed for the third day in a row, but its exchange-traded funds are continuing to tumble as investment groups pull out.

The rouble has fallen to 109:1 against the US dollar, close to its historic low on Monday, despite intervention by the Russian Central Bank.

Vladimir Putin has has signed a decree to prohibit Russians from leaving the country with more than $10,000 in foreign currency.

In a further sign of its effort to suppress discontent, the Kremlin banned two leading media outlets on Tuesday.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine’s Government and people are preparing for a deadly escalation of Vladimir Putin’s war on their cities.

Frustrated in its initial attempt to topple the Zelenskiy Government, Russia threatened intense bombing and missile attacks on areas such as the capital Kyiv and the second city Kharkiv on Tuesday, declaring “high-precision strikes” would be launched.

Russian forces have already carried out the strikes on Kharkiv for days, having failed to establish a military presence in the city on Sunday. On Wednesday morning, another incursion by Russia’s paratroopers is being reported, hours after an attempt to assassinate Kharkiv’s governor and staff with a missile strike on the Administration Building — the targets survived, but 11 civilians perished in other attacks.

Putin’s force also bombed Kyiv on Tuesday. The TV tower was damaged, although channels were soon back on air. Another missile struck near the Babin Yar Memorial, reportedly killing five civilians. In the city of Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv, four people including a child were slain by a cruise missile.

However, amid reports of serious problems with supply and logistics for the Russian offensive, a 40-mile armored convoy was stopped about 25 km (16 miles) outside the capital. Military and intelligence analysts assess that Ukrainians are not attacking the force because it is a decoy or made up of conscripts and less effective armored vehicles, compared to smaller, better equipped convoys with elite personnel.

Russia did advance in southern Ukraine, the one area where it has had marked success along a 250-km (155-mile) strip along the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, including capture of the city of Melitopol.

The mayor of Kherson, on the Black Sea, said Russian troops have taken the railway station and the port. Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, has reportedly been surrounded.

On the legal front, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor is opening an investigation of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity, as evidence mounts of Russia’s attacks on civilian sites and use of cluster munitions.

“Ukrainians Are Incredible”

Some residents tried to exit Kyiv on Tuesday, packing railway stations. However, many others vowed to remain and resist the Russian onslaught.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a series of rallying statements and told the European Parliament by video link:

Ukrainians are incredible….

Nobody is going to enter and intervene with our freedom and country.

Nobody is going to break us. We are strong. We are Ukrainians.

He chided the Russian claim that it was only attacking military targets, “Where are these children, what kind of military factories do they work at? What tanks are they going at, launching cruise missiles?”

Sanctions on Russia, Support for Ukraine

International sanctions were further extended against Russia on Tuesday.

In his State of the Union address, Joe Biden announced that the US would join most European states in closing airspace to Russian flights.

Apple, Exxon, Ford, Nike, Boeing, and Jaguar Land Rover are the latest multinational companies to sales of their products or operations in Russia. The European Union has barred Russian State outlet RT from broadcasting on satellite platforms, and YouTube is blocking RT’s streams across Europe.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pointed to a widening of measures to prevent Russian banks, companies, and individual moving money outside the country. She said Washington and its partners will convene a taskforce “to freeze and seize the assets of key Russian elites….[This] will inflict financial pain on the powerful individuals surrounding Putin and make clear that no one is beyond our collective reach.”

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank pledged $3 billion in support for Ukraine as they condemned the Russian invasion causing “horrifying” suffering.