Russia-Ukraine live updates: Biden announces sanctions on company building Russian gas pipeline as Ukraine prepares for conflict

A senior defense official said Wednesday that 80 percent of the Russian forces arrayed around Ukraine have moved into forward operating positions, suggesting that an invasion could take place if and when Russian President Vladimir Putin gives an order to strike.

“It is our assessment that he is fully prepared to conduct a large-scale invasion,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of a developing situation. The official added: “That is a likely option.”

The official said that Putin had mobilized “dang near 100 percent” of the forces the Pentagon had expected he would move into the area, and that they believed the Russian president had made a decision in favor of an invasion, as President Biden has stated in recent days. But the official would not specify the number or type of Russian assets they were seeing coalesce, although such troops have not yet moved westward past the territories controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

The official nonetheless warned that Putin “is as ready as he can be” and that the troops “could go at any hour now.”

“Whether they actually go or not is up to Mr. Putin,” the official added.

At the State Department, spokesman Ned Price was asked about reports that the U.S. issued warnings to the Ukrainian government that intelligence points to a wider invasion of Russia imminently, particularly, the northeastern city of Kharkiv.

"For several days now, we have said the invasion is potentially imminent, meaning it could start today, tomorrow or next week,” he said. “What we haven’t seen is any indication that the Russians are backing away from this.”

NEKLINOVKA — Dozens of Russian soldiers were celebrating Defender of the Fatherland Day in a village about 30 miles from the border between Russia and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, as heavy military equipment stood on train tracks, their barrels pointing toward eastern Ukraine.

The equipment, which included an array of howitzers and armored vehicles, was moved there in the past few days on tow trucks from fields and woods in the Rostov region. U.S. officials have warned about Russia’s near-complete military buildup and the possibility of a large-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Shelves of a local grocery store in Neklinovka were emptied by soldiers who appeared to be stocking up for several days, grabbing instant noodles, water, bread and condensed milk.

Across the road, young men in uniforms lined up in front of a liquor store. A canteen next door quickly ran out of food as soldiers gathered for dinner.

“Today, it is like a field kitchen out here,” one man standing in line joked. Music blasted from parked cars and smartphones as soldiers smoked outside.

Locals say that troops camping there began arriving about a month ago but appear to be loaded up into convoys and preparing to leave on Thursday.

The holiday commemorates soldiers who lost their lives in various conflicts throughout Russia’s history and is now celebrated across several post-Soviet countries.

MOSCOW — Russian celebrity YouTuber Yury Dud, who has a massive following of more than 10 million subscribers, condemned President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine policy in an Instagram post, calling it “imperial frenzy.”

Dud suggested that Putin’s recognition of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine would have immense historical implications.

“I am writing this with exactly one motive: when my children grow up, get to this piece of history, go nuts and ask, ‘Dad, what were you doing then?' I will have a written proof.

“I did not support this imperial frenzy,” he wrote.

Dud, 35, who is of Ukrainian descent, was born in Eastern Europe but has lived in Russia since childhood. He began the post describing a recent trip to Norway where every village showed prosperity. The contrast with Russia, also rich in oil and gas, was obvious.

The photograph he used with the post showed Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting at a table in the Kremlin with his National Security Council on Monday. Putin called on the members, perched faraway on chairs, and asked whether they supported his move to recognize the separatist regions. Not one dissented.

According to Dud, Russia saw: “An emperor fascinated by history. A retinue with an amputated opinion and will. A propaganda escort, so smoothly and so sweetly approving the war from warm metropolitan apartments.

“Well, the decisions that this whole party takes. The decisions are not to convert natural resources into the well-being of Voronezh, Kamchatka, Nikel and Zapolyarny, but to grow rich ourselves and stay longer in the control of these resources.”

It is becoming increasingly difficult for Russian YouTubers and bloggers to express dissent. Comedians have been charged over satirical videos.

Correction: An earlier version of this post inaccurately referred to Dud’s trip abroad. He traveled to Norway, not Finland, and the post has been corrected.

Researchers in recent weeks have been studying Russian-made videos for signs that Moscow’s claims of violence in Ukraine’s eastern separatist regions were fabrications. And they found copious evidence, including repurposed clips from years ago and dates in metadata fields that made clear that the claims were faked.

But Twitter on Tuesday mysteriously suspended several of the researchers’ accounts for unspecified violations. One even appealed his suspension, and it was upheld without explanation.

The researchers feared the worst — that a coordinated campaign by Russia, perhaps using bots or other forms of automation, had reported phantom violations in a bid to silence the work of the researchers.

On Wednesday, however, Twitter said the problem was with its own content-moderation systems and not the work of Russian sabotage.

The explanation: Twitter’s human review teams studying video from the Ukraine crisis had erroneously concluded that videos posted by the researchers, who by their very nature work with “open source” material such as news clips and YouTube videos, were manipulated images, said Twitter spokeswoman Katie Rosborough. She cited the company’s policy against “synthetic and manipulated media” and said she knew of fewer than a dozen affected accounts.

“We’ve been proactively monitoring for emerging narratives that are violative of our policies, and, in this instance, we took enforcement action on a number of accounts in error,” Rosborough said in an email statement. “We’re expeditiously reviewing these actions and have already proactively reinstated access to a number of affected accounts. The claims that the errors were a coordinated bot campaign or the result of mass reporting is inaccurate.”

One researcher who had tweeted about the problem, Nick Waters, a London-based investigator for research group Bellingcat, said he counted 15 Twitter accounts erroneously blocked. He welcomed the acknowledgment of error by Twitter but said such problems have happened repeatedly around the world, including in Syria, Turkey and India.

“It’s still disappointing that these things keep happening again and again,” Waters said.

In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, laid blame for the crisis between Russia and Ukraine squarely on Russia's actions, and called on member nations to act urgently to stop Putin from escalating the situation further.

“Colleagues, there is no middle ground here. Calling for both sides to de-escalate only gives Russia a pass. Russia is the aggressor here,” Thomas-Greenfield said Wednesday. “History tells us that looking the other way is ultimately the more costly path.”

Thomas-Greenfield said Putin had manufactured a “fake reality” by declaring regions of eastern Ukraine as “independent states” to justify an invasion of Ukraine. She said the world only needs to look at Putin's actions over the past decade — noting Russia's 2014 invasion and occupation of Crimea — to see the path Russia is taking now. She also referred to Putin's speech Monday, when he harked back to Russia's empire more than a century ago.

“He asserted that Russia can recolonize its neighbors. And that he will use force — he will use force — to make a farce of the United Nations,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “The United States rejects that firmly. This is 2022. We are not going back to an era of empires and colonies — or to the USSR or the Soviet Union. We have moved forward.”

Pope Francis, speaking Wednesday during his weekly general audience, condemned Russian actions in Ukraine and said the situation there pains him deeply.

“I have great pain in my heart for the worsening situation in Ukraine,” Francis said. “Despite the diplomatic efforts over the past few weeks, various alarming scenarios continue to open, and like myself, many people throughout the world are worried, and once more the peace of all is threatened by the interests of a few.”

Francis said he would like “all of those who have the political responsibility to make a serious examination of conscience before God.”

“He wants us to be brothers and not enemies,” the pope added. “I pray that all sides abstain from any action that could provoke more suffering to the population.”

Francis then proclaimed that this year’s Ash Wednesday, which falls on March 2, will be marked as an international day of fasting and prayer for peace.

Government and banking websites in Ukraine came under renewed cyberattack Wednesday, but cyber protection agencies are fighting back, the Ukrainian government said.

“Currently, the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine and other subjects of the national cybersecurity system are working on countering the attacks, collecting and analyzing information,” the agency said in a statement.

The Ukrainian government did not say who it believed was behind Wednesday’s attacks, but last week, the United States blamed the Russian government for cyberattacks that disrupted the online banking services of at least two large Ukrainian banks. The distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks flooded websites with an overwhelming amount of traffic, causing servers to crash. Service was restored within hours.

A spokesman for the Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

After last week’s cyberattacks, the Ukrainians approached U.S. counterparts, who connected them with DDoS protection services, which they are using to try to restore service.

Computer systems at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were hit Wednesday morning but were operating soon after. Also affected were sites including those of the Rada, or Ukrainian Parliament, and the Cabinet of Ministers. One large bank, Oschadbank, whose online services were disrupted last week, was hit again Wednesday. So was the website of the agency that polices cybercrime.

Private-sector analysts said that Ukraine overall was still connected to the Internet but that banks and government agency sites were being flooded with DDoS traffic.

“The country is presently still connected to the Internet, and data is flowing in and out,” said Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis for Kentik, which tracks data flows worldwide.

Russia has stepped up its cyber aggression against Ukraine, as it has massed what U.S. officials say are up to 190,000 troops and supporting forces in and near Ukraine. Cyberattacks that disrupt services are widely expected as a means of trying to sow panic and confusion and to diminish confidence in the government. They also can be used to cut communications and hinder military operations. So far, that has not happened, but Ukrainian officials and their counterparts in the United States and Europe are closely monitoring events.

LVIV, Ukraine — The leaders of Poland and Lithuania joined Ukraine in calling Wednesday for the “swift introduction of robust package of sanctions” against Moscow, and they expressed support for Ukraine’s candidacy to become a member of the European Union.

In a joint statement after a meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, Poland’s Andrzej Duda and Lithuania’s Gitanas Nauseda also strongly condemned Russia’s decision to recognize two pro-Moscow separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.

“We call upon the international community to take resolute and far-reaching steps in response to this yet another act of aggression committed by Russia against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” the three presidents said.

These would include further measures against the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, the statement said. Berlin announced Tuesday it was freezing the certification process for the project, in response to Moscow’s recognition of the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

In a phone call Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that recognizing the two self-proclaimed “people’s republics” was an “objective necessity” because of “the aggression of the Ukrainian authorities,” according to the K