Russia-Ukraine live updates: Biden says Russia’s aggression against Ukraine ‘cannot go unanswered’

Facebook parent Meta has set up a special operations center to respond to disinformation and glorification of violence in real-time in light of the attacks on Ukraine, the company said in a statement. It will also temporarily change its approach to a neo-Nazi group.

The goal of the unit, which the company uses around elections and crisis events, is to quickly remove content that violates standards.

“Our thoughts are with everyone affected by the escalating military conflict in Ukraine,” spokeswoman Dani Lever said in a statement. “We have established a special operations center to respond to activity across our platform in real-time.”

Lever said the operations center is staffed by experts, including native language speakers, who will closely monitor and remove content that violates standards. Meta also launched a new feature in Ukraine that allows people to “lock their profile” to provide an extra layer of privacy and security.

Social media has long been a battleground in the simmering conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Russia has sowed disinformation for years in Ukraine in an attempt to drum up support while undermining Ukrainian independence movements.

Before 2016, Facebook executives largely turned a blind eye to it, according to two people familiar with the internal debates at the time who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Lever also said that the company had switched its policies over a Ukrainian neo-Nazi group called the Azov Battalion. Discussions about the group had been previously banned on Facebook, but Facebook will now allow people to praise the group because it is fighting Russia.

“For the time being, we are making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov Regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard,” Lever said, adding that Meta is “continuing to ban all hate speech” and other content that violates standards.

The decision about the neo-Nazi group shows how social media companies must grapple with tough choices and trade-offs during crises.

President Biden announced Thursday that he would be sending “thousands” of additional U.S. troops to Germany and Poland to bolster NATO’s defenses in reaction to Russia launching its assaults on Ukraine.

“As I have made crystal clear, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of American power,” Biden said during a national address. “There is no doubt that the United States and every NATO ally will meet our Article Five commitments, which say that an attack on one is an attack on all.”

Biden did not specify how many forces would be deployed. The Defense Department put 8,500 troops on high alert and on shorter orders last month, in anticipation of such a potential deployment. The president has also moved ground and air forces already stationed in Europe eastward, to reinforce defenses in Poland, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Earlier on Thursday, a senior defense official said that the United States would be positioning two F-35s each in Estonia, Lithuania and Romania as well.

Biden’s announcement comes on the heels of NATO activating response plans, which the president said “will enable high readiness forces to deploy when and where they are needed to protect our allies on the eastern boundaries of Europe.” The U.S. forces deploying to Germany will be part of that NATO response, he added.

“I am convinced that if we do not move against him now, he will be emboldened,” Biden said, when asked if he was concerned that Putin might push beyond Ukraine and attack NATO countries. However, he added that U.S. troops would not be sent into Ukraine to fight Russia, a pledge he has made previously.

Absent from the sanctions announced Thursday by President Biden was cutting Russia off from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a cooperative of financial institutions formed in 1973 that is headquartered in Belgium.

SWIFT serves as a secure messaging system that connects thousands of financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories, alerting banks when transactions are going to occur. Some analysts have suggested that cutting Russia off would be one of the toughest penalties the United States and allies could impose.

Biden offered a different view as he addressed reporters.

“The sanctions we’ve imposed exceed SWIFT,” he said. “The sanctions we propose exceed anything that’s ever been done.”

Biden said cutting Russia out of SWIFT, however, remains an option.

“But right now, that’s not the position that the rest of Europe wishes to take,” he said.

President Biden said Russia’s aggression against Ukraine “cannot go unanswered,” adding that if it did, “the consequences for America would be much worse.”

“America stands up to bullies, we stand up for freedom,” Biden said in a White House address. “This is who we are.”

The president said he has no plans to talk to Putin, whom he accused of committing assault “on the very principles that uphold the global peace.” U.S.-Russia relations, he said, are in a “complete rupture right now.”

“But now the entire world sees clearly [what] Putin, his cabinet and his Kremlin allies are really all about,” Biden said. “This was never about genuine security concerns on their part. It was always about naked aggression, about Putin’s desire for empire by any means necessary, by bullying Russia’s neighbors through coercion and corruption, by changing borders by force and ultimately by choosing a war without a cause.”

Biden said he spoke with Zelensky on Wednesday night and assured him that the United States and its allies “will support the Ukrainian people as they defend their country” and provide “humanitarian relief to ease their suffering.”

Biden accused Russia’s “propaganda outlets” of “trying to hide the truth and claim success for its military operation against a made-up threat.”

“But history has shown time and again how swift gains in territory eventually give way to grinding occupations, acts of mass civil disobedience and strategic dead ends,” Biden said. “The next few weeks and months will be hard on the people of Ukraine.”

President Biden said Thursday that his administration is using every tool at its disposal to protect American families and businesses from increases in energy costs in the fallout from Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

“We’re taking active steps to bring down the costs, and American oil and gas companies should not exploit this moment to hike their prices to raise profits,” he said from the White House on Thursday. “On our sanctions package, we specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue. We are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption.”

“We’ve been coordinating with major oil-producing and -consuming countries toward our common interest to secure global energy supplies,” the president added. “We are actively working with countries around the world to elevate collective release from the strategic petroleum reserves of major energy-consuming countries. ”

Discussions about the effects an invasion on Ukraine from Russia would have on American consumers have been a constant since the earliest conversations about the conflict. The Biden White House has repeatedly found itself on the receiving end of criticism due to inflation for months. And economists and other officials have warned that a conflict between Russia and American allies could make economic matters worse for U.S. consumers.

As Russia’s attack against Ukraine upends lives, pushing many to flee, neighboring countries in Central Europe are bracing for the potential mass arrival of refugees.

The government of Moldova, which shares a long border with Ukraine, said Thursday that the country has already set up two temporary placement centers to receive an influx of Ukrainian refugees. The centers in Palanca, in the east, and Ocnita, in the country’s northern region, will provide humanitarian, legal and food assistance to refugees.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu said the country had already seen more than 4,000 Ukrainian crossings into the nation Thursday.

“Our borders are open for [Ukrainian] citizens who need safe transit or stay,” Sandu said on Twitter.

In Slovakia, authorities announced early Thursday that the Ukraine-Slovakia border crossing points are open and added that every Ukrainian coming will be allowed to enter the country, even those who do not have a passport, after an individual review.

“We will allow entry to all people who are fleeing this conflict,” police officials said in a statement.

Officials in Slovakia, along with Hungary — which also shares a border with Ukraine — said Thursday that they will deploy troops to their borders to help manage the likely influx.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban condemned Russia’s attacks and said Thursday that the number of Ukrainian refugees heading toward Hungary’s borders was likely to grow. He added that his country is “prepared to care for them and will be able to meet this challenge quickly and effectively,” the Associated Press reported.

The conflict could unleash one of the worst humanitarian crises since the Syrian civil war, which prompted the arrival of more than 1 million refugees in Europe in 2015.

But it is Poland that is expected to bear the brunt of any influx, with government officials estimating they could see up to a million people arriving from its neighboring country.

On Thursday, families carrying children and dragging suitcases walked for miles to border crossings where Polish authorities have set up reception points for Ukrainians seeking safety outside their homeland. Lines of barely moving cars stretched at least five miles into Ukraine from the Medyka-Shehyni border point.

Germany on Thursday pledged support for its neighbors including Poland in the event of an influx of refugees as a result of Russia’s military attacks.

“We are following very closely whether there will be an influx of refugees to our neighboring countries,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said. “We will provide massive help to the affected states — especially our neighbor Poland — should there be a large-scale influx.”

In addition to announcing new sanctions against Russia, President Biden on Thursday said he was authorizing more U.S. troops to deploy to Europe as part of NATO’s response to Russia.

Biden said American ground and air forces already stationed in Europe would be deployed to NATO’s eastern flank allies: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.

“This will enable NATO’s high readiness forces to deploy and when and where they’re needed to protect our NATO allies on the eastern borders of Europe,” Biden said, adding that he had also spoken about “preparations for additional moves, should they become necessary, to protect our NATO allies and support the greatest military alliance in the history of the world, NATO.”

Biden said NATO would convene a summit Friday to bring together leaders of 30 allied nations and close partners to discuss how it could strengthen the defensive alliance further. He said that NATO would remain “stronger than ever” in defiance of Putin.

“Let me say it again: Our forces are not and will not be engaged in a conflict with Russia in Ukraine,” Biden said. “Our forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine, but to defend our NATO allies and reassure those allies in the east. As I made crystal clear, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of American power.”

MOSCOW — Thousands of people protested President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine in cities across Russia, a surge of anger in a nation where spontaneous mass demonstrations are illegal and protesters can face fines and jail.

More than 1,000 people were arrested in 47 cities across the nation, according to rights group OVD-Info. The group was declared a foreign agent last year, when Putin launched a sweeping crackdown on activists, rights groups and opposition figures.

The protests came along with an outpouring of horror from liberal Russians, social media influencers, actors, television presenters, actors and others over the attacks.

Russians rallied in towns and cities across the nation, a rare event not seen since the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny a year ago that provoked the biggest protests seen in Russia. The demonstrations were striking after Putin’s brutal crackdown last year, when many activists and opposition figures were either jailed, under house arrest or forced to flee the country to avoid prison.

About 1,000 protesters, some carrying antiwar banners, rallied in central Moscow, chanting, “No to war!” Riot police closed in quickly, forcing them into police vans. Large protests took place in other cities such as St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Perm.