Russia-Ukraine live updates: Belarus prepares to join invasion, ramping up tension ahead of Russia-Ukraine talks

Facebook said late Sunday that it had disrupted a Russian disinformation operation targeting Ukraine, one of the first official confirmations of such a campaign since the invasion of Ukraine last week.

The small operation, Facebook said, ran a handful of websites masquerading as independent news outlets and published claims about the West betraying Ukraine and Ukraine being a failed state. The accounts had fewer than 4,500 followers on Facebook and Instagram combined.

Facebook, which recently changed its name to Meta, also said it had taken action against a hacking group that in recent days attempted to compromise the accounts of prominent Ukrainians.

The hacking group Ghostwriter, the company said, had successfully targeted Ukrainian military, journalists and other public officials. The hacking group typically targets people by sending malicious links to their email and hoping they will click on it, allowing the group to take over their social media profiles.

The company said it had detected attempts to get the compromised social media accounts to post YouTube videos portraying Ukrainian troops as weak and surrendering to Russia, including a video claiming to show Ukrainian soldiers coming out of a forest while flying a white flag of surrender.

Alphabet-owned Google said it has temporarily disabled live traffic and crowd-size features in Google Maps in Ukraine, amid fears for the safety of local communities.

Google spokeswoman Alex Krasov confirmed the development, which was first reported by Reuters. She said the company had “taken the action for the safety of local communities in the country, after consulting with sources including regional authorities.”

Traffic data is still available for drivers in the area using the Google Maps app to navigate, Krasov said. But live traffic information and Google’s “busy area” feature that shows how crowded places such as restaurants and stores are won’t be visible on a general map of the area.

Google Maps is a key tool for following the invasion of Ukraine, helping researchers track troops and civilians seek shelter.

On Google Maps, tracking the invasion of Ukraine

Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif., documented how he and his team of researchers realized an invasion was underway hours before the news became public by combining Google Maps traffic information with a radar image that showed Russian armored troops near Ukraine’s border.

But concerns have also surfaced in recent days about location data potentially being used to pinpoint large gatherings, and posts have sprung up on social media with instructions on how to turn off geolocation features.

Google Maps and other map applications track cellphone locations in real time. The company earlier declined to confirm whether its Maps app showed any SOS alerts in Ukraine, or whether it shows a list of bomb shelters in the country. But it does give information about subway stations, some of which are being used as shelters.

Belarus is preparing to send soldiers into Ukraine in support of the Russian invasion in a deployment that could begin as soon as Monday, a U.S. administration official said Sunday evening.

The decision would mark a significant escalation in Belarus’s role in the conflict and complicate upcoming diplomatic talks between Ukraine and Russia, which are poised to take place on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border.

“It’s very clear Minsk is now an extension of the Kremlin,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive security development.

The Kyiv Independent first reported on Belarus’s troop preparations, noting that an Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft is expected to carry Belarusian paratroopers into Ukraine.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The agreement for talks between Kyiv and Moscow was announced Sunday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“We will be happy if the result of these negotiations is peace and the end of the war,” said Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, reading a statement to reporters. “But I emphasize again, we will not give up. We will not capitulate. We will not give away an inch of our territory.”

Norway’s state-controlled oil company, Equinor, said it will leave its joint ventures in Russia over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, marking another big Western company breaking ties.

The news came hours after British oil giant BP said it was dumping its $14 billion stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft, also to protest the invasion of Ukraine.

“We are all deeply troubled by the invasion of Ukraine, which represents a terrible setback for the world, and we are thinking of all those who are suffering because of the military action,” Anders Opedal, president and CEO of Equinor, said in a statement.

The company, 67 percent of whose shares are owned by the Norwegian government, valued its long-term holdings in Russia at $1.2 billion. It said it will “start the process of exiting our joint ventures in a manner that is consistent with our values.” Its ventures include part of an exploration and production company in eastern Siberia.

PRZEMYŚL, Poland — Less than a week ago, the supermarket parking lot was just that — an expanse of cars in this sleepy river town a few miles from the Ukrainian border.

By Sunday, bus after bus filled with Ukrainians and others fleeing the besieged country arrived here, where they were met by crowds that had converged from all over Europe to greet the refugees with hot tea, borscht and offers of transport to all corners of a continent shocked by Russia’s invasion.

The exodus continues to grow all along Ukraine’s 1,600-mile western border: More than 400,000 people have fled in the four days since the war began, said Matt Saltmarsh, a spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency. E.U. Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson said Sunday that the European Union may grant temporary asylum to Ukrainians for up to three years. The plan could move ahead this week.

Thousands more people in Ukraine are ready to escape but are stuck in seemingly endless waits at border posts where they hope to cross into Poland’s industrial southeast, or over the Carpathian Mountains into Slovakia and Hungary, or across the delta of the Danube into Romania.

Immigration authorities in the five countries to Ukraine’s west have been overwhelmed, and many trying to flee have waited for days. Those with cars sleep in them. Those on foot will themselves to stay awake, unable to rest in the subfreezing overnight temperatures and fearful of losing their place in the miles-long lines. It’s a journey so arduous that some simply give up and decide to risk staying in Ukraine.

With people now beginning to arrive at these borders from the capital Kyiv, as well as Ukraine’s east — the area hit worst by Russia’s attacks — the number languishing is set to rise dramatically.

More than 400,000 Ukrainians have fled to European neighbors — mainly to Poland, as well as to Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia and Romania — since Russia invaded Ukraine on Thursday, a spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency said Sunday.

Thousands more are still trying to get through the clogged borders, waiting in the cold for hours on end in cars or on foot with only minimal belongings. As of Saturday, there was a nearly nine-mile backlog at the crossing into Poland, with some people waiting for 40 hours in 28-degree temperatures at night, according to a spokesperson with the U.N. refugee agency, Chris Melzer.

The scale of the exodus has not been seen in Europe in years. What could become Europe’s biggest humanitarian emergency since 2015 — when more than 1 million refugees, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, arrived and triggered a continentwide crisis over whether to accept or reject those fleeing — is swiftly unfolding.

So far, European leaders and communities say they are ready to welcome Ukrainian refugees — including countries such as Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, which have previously hardened their borders and policies in the face of other waves of refugees amid a backlash from the far right.