March 1, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

China has started evacuating its citizens from Ukraine, state media said.

Some 400 students based in the Black Sea Port city of Odessa, and another 200 from the capital, Kyiv, left the country on Monday, according to state-run tabloid Global Times, which cited the Chinese Embassy in Ukraine. Another 1,000 citizens are expected to be evacuated into neighboring countries on Tuesday, it added.

Plans for charter flights to get Chinese citizens out were put hold over the weekend as fighting intensified, with the Chinese Embassy in Ukraine citing security risks.

Unlike nationals from many other countries, Chinese nationals in Ukraine did not receive instructions to leave the country before Russia's invasion began. Prior to Russia's attack, Chinese officials pushed back on warnings from the United States and its allies that an aggressive move from Moscow was imminent.

China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Monday defended Beijing's approach, saying the ministry and the Chinese Embassy in Ukraine “issued relevant safety warnings in a timely manner.”

There are about 6,000 Chinese nationals in Ukraine, according to state media.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin rattles the West with nuclear threats, President Joe Biden faces an even tougher-than-expected task in Tuesday's State of the Union address.

He must recognize the fatigue, suffering and pessimism in a nation exhausted by the Covid-19 pandemic, rocked by rising inflation and high gas prices and now suddenly thrown by Russia's invasion of Ukraine into the worst geopolitical crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Then he must somehow conjure optimism about better times to come ahead of this year's midterms as he faces ebbing confidence among Americans that he has the plans, skills and endurance to end the crises.

At the same time, the President needs to send a message of US resolve amid fears the Ukraine crisis could spin out of control and trigger a direct clash with Russia, which has the world's most nuclear warheads. But any further escalation with Putin, who on Sunday ordered his nuclear deterrent to higher alert, carries significant risks.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine shattered 30 years of relative peace in Europe after the end of the Cold War. The battle for Ukraine is the first real fight in the new war for dominance between autocracy and democracy, which the President has long predicted.

Biden faces a rhetorical balancing act. He needs to avoid the impression that his role as the leader of the free world is distracting him from economic pain, rising crime, and the cascade of domestic crises that he inherited and promised to fix but has not yet done so.

The unpromising political environment for Democrats — partly bequeathed by a President whose approval rating has dipped to 40% in CNN's average of the most recent national polls — is already playing out in nascent 2022 election campaigns around the country, where Democrats are finding out that strong job growth and an economic bounce-back despite the Omicron wave are being disguised by rising prices of basic goods. The Ukraine crisis is only driving gas prices higher.

Read the full analysis:

RELATED

Analysis: Biden addresses an anxious world as Putin makes nuclear threats

Taiwan will join moves to block some Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments system “in lockstep” with Western countries, Premier Su Tseng-chang told reporters Tuesday.

In addition, Taiwan will “scrutinize” products exported to Russia in accordance with the Wassenaar Arrangement — which regulates export controls for weapons and dual-use goods and technologies, economic affairs minister Wang Mei-hua told lawmakers.

Such exports won't be permitted “unless there are legitimate reasons," he said.

Wang acknowledged that Taiwan’s trade with Russia is minimal, but said major Taiwanese chipmakers have all pledged to comply with government policies and relevant regulations. “We will announce specific measures in due course,” she said.  

Taiwan accounts for more than half of the world's output of semiconductor chips.

Separately, Taiwan sent 27 tons of medical supplies to Ukraine on Monday.  

Read more about the SWIFT sanctions here.

Just hours after their wedding on the first day of Russia's invasion, Yaryna Arieva and Sviatoslav Fursin joined the fight to protect their country.

The couple were due to get married in May but rushed to tie the knot in Kyiv last week when Russia invaded, before joining the Ukrainian resistance.

Wearing camouflage jackets and holding a rifle, the couple told CNN's Don Lemon about spending their honeymoon living in a city under siege and taking up arms to fight against Russian troops invading their homeland.

She said it's the first day of spring and usually people would be sowing sunflowers — Ukraine’s national flower — instead, they will be resisting Russia's attack. 

Her husband, Fursin, was born in the western city of Lviv and said his "people always want to be free. These people are ready to fight for their freedom."

Going on combat missions, he is worried for the safety of his family — his wife, parents and sister — but said he "will do everything to protect them."

Arieva said she is working every day and though it's "hard waiting for my husband to come back from combat missions," everyone is helping each other.

The couple called on the international community to help Ukraine with money, food, weapons, and medical assistance and to place more sanctions on Russia.

Fursin said he hopes the time will come soon when he can gather his family and friends "all in one place and drink a good glass of wine. And say to everybody, 'Hurray, war is ended, we won.'"

Before that time, though, he said he wants "everybody in this world, including Russia and the Russian people, to remember" that they are fighting "for the freedom of the world."

The US Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has called for a "complete ban on international sport participation" for Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

USOPC said the ban should be effective immediately and be inclusive of the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, which begin on March 4.

South Korea will provide $10 million in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine as the Russian invasion continues, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry said the support will be made through consultations with the governments of Ukraine, neighboring countries and international organizations.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday ordered the government to rapidly come up with humanitarian support for Ukraine.

Sheikh Abrar attempts to sleep amid the sounds of sirens and blasts. He dare not switch on his phone, or keep a light on. Every night, he prays for safety.

“We don’t know how many people will die,” the 22-year-old Indian medical student told CNN by phone from the eastern city of Sumy on Monday, about 330 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and close to the Russian border.

Abrar is one of about 13,000 Indians stranded in Ukraine, as Indian authorities ramp up efforts to evacuate their citizens.

“They will evacuate us when there will be no one (left). Everyone will die,” Abrar said.

Abrar has been taking refuge in a hostel. But as Ukraine enters its sixth day of Russia’s unprovoked invasion, supplies — including food and water — are running low, leaving him and about 400 others with him desperate for help.

“Every second, every minute we are tweeting… we are trying to reach the Indian Embassy but what are they doing?” he said.

Indians evacuated: Since Ukraine’s airspace shut last week, India has evacuated about 2,000 nationals — mostly medical students like Abrar— from the country.

According to the medical student, India was late in issuing advisories to leave the country, and when they did on Feb. 15, it wasn’t possible for most to return. Flight costs increased and many middle-class families were unable to afford the journey home, he said.

On Monday, the Indian Embassy in Ukraine reiterated that all students should make the journey west to be evacuated. Several Indian ministers will travel to neighboring countries to coordinate the evacuation mission, a senior government official told CNN Monday.

But for Abrar, the decision to stay or leave comes with serious risks.

North Korea blamed the “hegemony policy of the US and the West” for the Ukrainian crisis in a statement issued by a Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Monday.

The United States and its allies have imposed sanctions against Russia and is applying pressure by blocking some Russian banks from the SWIFT global payment system.

The North Korean spokesperson said the US and the West have “systematically undermined the security environment of Europe by becoming more blatant in their attempts to deploy attack weapon systems while defiantly pursuing NATO’s eastward expansion.”

The spokesperson also denounced the “unilateral and double-dealing policy of the US” for threatening peace and security of sovereign states.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, foreign students attempting to leave the country say they are experiencing racist treatment by Ukrainian security forces and border officials.

One African medical student told CNN that she and other foreigners were ordered off the public transit bus at a checkpoint between Ukraine and Poland border.

They were told to stand aside as the bus drove off with only Ukrainian nationals on board, she says.

Rachel Onyegbule, a Nigerian first-year medical student in Lviv was left stranded at the border town of Shehyni, some 400 miles from Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

She told CNN: "More than 10 buses came and we were watching everyone leave. We thought after they took all the Ukrainians they would take us, but they told us we had to walk, that there were no more buses.

"My body was numb from the cold and we haven't slept in about 4 days now. Ukrainians have been prioritized over Africans — men and women — at every point. There's no need for us to ask why. We know why. I just want to get home," Onyegbule told CNN in a telephone call Sunday as she waited in line at the border to cross into Poland.

Onyegbule says she eventually got her exit document stamped on Monday morning around 4.30 a.m. local time.

Read more:

RELATED

Foreign students fleeing Ukraine say they face racism at border