Russia-Ukraine live updates: Invasion meets fierce resistance; high-stakes talks on Belarus border begin

At the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday night, celebrities from Lady Gaga to Ariana DeBose shared support for Ukraine, while Andrew Garfield noted it was “a pretty tricky day to celebrate.”

“It’s weird, it’s definitely odd that we are dressing up in this moment,” he told Laverne Cox, host of E!’s red carpet, adding that everyone was “keeping what’s happening in Ukraine in our hearts.”

Cox, who started the pre-show by saying she was praying for the safety of “our friends in Ukraine,” agreed. “Hopefully this can be an escape, too; hopefully our work and our art can be an escape for people in these very trying times,” she said. Elsewhere, Tyler Perry and Michael Douglas attached blue and yellow ribbons to their suits to show solidarity with the colors of the Ukrainian flag, and Lisa Ann Walter wore blue and yellow flowers on her dress.

After the show began, Brian Cox took the microphone when “Succession” won for best ensemble in a drama series, and he praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “wonderful comic performer.” (Zelensky was a comic actor before he became president.) Cox urged the Hollywood stars to support Russian actors who are against the invasion and face consequences for speaking up. “They are told under pain of high treason that they cannot say a word about Ukraine, and I think that is pretty awful,” he said. “And I think we should all stand together.”

Michael Keaton also called out Zelensky in his acceptance speech for “Dopesick”: “I will tell you, we have a fellow actor in Zelensky who deserves some credit tonight for fighting the fight.”

Ukrainian forces continue to stymie Russia’s advance toward major cities Monday, allowing local governments to resume some level of normal activity, at least temporarily. Russian forces remained about 19 miles to the north of Kyiv, according to the British government. Ukrainian forces have managed to hold on to the airfield at Hostomel, a key strategic priority for the Russian advance.

The British Ministry of Defense said that heavy fighting continued around the cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv, but that both cities remained in Ukrainian hands. It credited “staunch Ukrainian resistance” for the slow pace of the Russian campaign, which had been predicted to take the capital within days.

Ukrainian officials hailed their success so far but said they expected the fight to continue as delegations from Ukraine and Russia prepared to meet in Belarus. “The Russian occupiers have reduced the pace of the offensive, but are still trying to develop success in some areas in the offensive against Ukraine,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a statement Monday.

Kyiv’s municipal government reported a relatively calm night Sunday and early Monday, with the exception of isolated skirmishes that it blamed on Russian “sabotage and reconnaissance groups.”

The city advised residents to stay home unless they urgently needed to buy food or visit a pharmacy but also said grocery stores and the transit system would open for business Monday. Trains would run on a reduced schedule. The government warned that residents who ventured out after being restricted to their homes for more than a day should brace for a city getting on its war footing. “You’ll see fortifications, tank traps, and other defensive structures that have appeared on the streets of Kyiv,” the statement said.

Residents continued to leave major population centers for safer locations in the western parts of Ukraine or in neighboring countries. In Kyiv, officials have set up a humanitarian relief center in the central rail station to facilitate crowds boarding trains offering assistance to those staying. The center, staffed by more than 60 volunteers who speak multiple languages, features two warming centers, a field kitchen and psychological counseling, according to Ukrainian media.

In Kharkiv, there were long lines at grocery stores Monday morning, with dozens waiting to enter one store. But few cars or pedestrians were to be seen, as artillery explosions could be heard close to downtown. The highways leaving the city were moving smoothly, although some drivers were speeding and seemed to be near panic. One man was heard yelling at other vehicles to go faster. Military checkpoints had been set up on main routes, where the evidence of recent shelling was obvious.

The current rush by the West to send weapons to Ukraine is in stark contrast to years of hesitancy that often had as much to do with domestic U.S. and allied politics, and concerns about their own relations with Moscow, than with an assessment of the Russian threat to Ukraine.

Russia’s launch last week of a full-scale invasion, with land, air and sea attacks on Ukrainian cities and military installations, has been met with what U.S. officials have described as a surprisingly robust defense. Officials in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, claim they have destroyed hundreds of Russian vehicles, including an entire column of T-72 tanks in the northeast Ukrainian town of Glukhov, near the Russian border.

Ukraine has pleaded for more help, including additional Javelin antitank weapons, and Stinger antiaircraft missiles. The Kremlin has gone “beyond all bounds and crossed all the red lines,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov beseeched Congress last week on YouTube. “It is not going to stop if we will not stop it.”

President Biden has authorized nearly $1 billion in military assistance over the past year for Ukraine, including $350 million in weapons such as antitank and antiaircraft missiles last week, and $200 million in drawdowns from U.S. arms stocks approved in December.

While the administration has moved quickly since Russian troops began massing on the border in December, its response was sluggish to earlier Russian deployments in April. Before the Russians finally moved into Ukraine in force on Thursday, Republican lawmakers and pundits accused Biden of appeasement in trying to secure a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Russia would never have dared to invade, several charged, if Biden hadn’t shown weakness by withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Singapore will join the United States and the European Union in imposing “appropriate sanctions and restrictions” on Russia, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said in Parliament on Monday — a rare move for the financial center that for years has been a hub for global private wealth.

The city-state is also a major producer of semiconductors and technology upon which Russia relies.

The move came as Singapore Airlines announced it would suspend flights to and from Moscow until further notice for undefined “operational reasons.” The ban will affect two flights.

Balakrishnan told lawmakers that the Southeast Asian nation “intends to act in concert with many other like-minded countries to impose appropriate sanctions and restrictions against Russia.” Singapore, he noted, was one of the co-sponsors of a draft U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which was vetoed by Russia.

Bilahari Kausikan, a former Singaporean ambassador to Russia, said the latest measures marked one of the first occasions since 1978 that Singapore has imposed sanctions without Security Council endorsement.

The specifics will be announced at a later date but will include export controls on items that can be used to aid in war against Ukraine, as well as restrictions on certain Russian banks and transactions, the foreign minister said.

Singapore is among the few countries in Southeast Asia that quickly and decisively condemned the Russian invasion. Only two, Singapore and Timor-Leste, were among the co-sponsors of the Security Council resolution that was vetoed by Russia. Ukraine’s ambassador to Singapore said earlier that the two countries were “on the same page” when it came to protecting international order.

Balakrishnan acknowledged the measures will have “some cost and implications” on Singaporean businesses.

Singapore has refrained from imposing sanctions on other human rights violators around the world, including its regional neighbor Myanmar, which was slapped with punishing Western sanctions in the wake of a military coup last year.

“However, unless we as a country stand up for principles that are the very foundation for the independence and sovereignty of smaller nations, our own right to exist and prosper as a nation may similarly be called into question one day,” Balakrishnan added.

Even as he puts his nuclear forces on high alert and his troops close in on Kyiv, Russian President Vladimir Putin has reason to worry: His war on Ukraine appears to be backfiring.

Unmasked as an unpredictable, even existential threat in the view of governments around the world, Putin has emerged as a dangerous symbol of tyranny, stoking the biggest European defense reassessment in decades. A reinvigorated NATO is emerging. Resurgent Western unity — wounded under former president Donald Trump — has enabled sanctions on Moscow that are some of the harshest ever imposed. With Germany suddenly off the fence in what is shaping up to be a historic realignment against Moscow, Putin faces new, as opposed to neutralized, security challenges in Russia’s backyard.

Earlier this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has called Putin his “best friend,” welcomed him to Beijing. But reportedly taken aback by the speed, scope and force of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, Beijing is proving a more reluctant ally than Putin might have hoped, with Xi urging Putin to settle the conflict at the negotiating table. Delegations from Russia and Ukraine will meet near the Belarus border for their first talks since Russia launched its invasion Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Putin’s supportive oligarchs live in a shrinking world — their foreign mansions, super yachts and billions under threat of seizure. “Russian-owned, Russian-registered or Russian-controlled aircraft” are banned from E.U. airspace. Amid stirring images of the Russian bombardment — and the rise of Zelensky as a global cause celebre — foreign leaders who had cozied up to Putin before the invasion are suffering repercussions at home.

President Vladimir Putin’s decision to put Russian nuclear forces on alert thrust the crisis over Ukraine into a more volatile phase on Sunday, fueling the potential for deadly miscalculation as the West’s campaign of economic reprisal increases the chances the Russian leader could see his survival and that of the Russian state at risk.

U.S. officials were scrambling in the hours following Putin’s order, issued as Russian troops face stiff resistance in the fourth day of their invasion of Ukraine, to decode what the enigmatic leader’s decision meant in practice. Experts said it was the first time the Kremlin, which has the world’s biggest nuclear stockpile, had made such an announcement since the Russian Federation was established in 1991.

Putin described the move as a response to what he called “aggressive statements” from the West and its escalating package of economic retaliation. The sanctions, including new steps unveiled Saturday that would cut off Russia’s financial institutions from the global economy and cripple its central bank, have already sent the ruble tumbling to a record low, raising questions about how Russia’s economy can hold on.

Biden administration officials condemned Putin’s order as a warning over Ukraine, where Putin has depicted his invasion as a security imperative rather than a signal of his intent to employ a nuclear device. They noted that Russia, just last month, was one of the nations signed on to a declaration saying that atomic war could not be won and should never be fought.

“This is just an attempt, an escalatory attempt, to justify further action on their part,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told MSNBC. “We have the ability, of course, to defend ourselves, as does NATO. But I think we all need to be very clear-eyed and call this out for what it is.”

MOSCOW — As casualties in Russia’s invasion mounted and tensions between the Kremlin and NATO escalated dangerously, Russian and Ukrainian delegations began talks about the conflict in southern Belarus near the Ukrainian border Monday, according to the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky’s office said on the Telegram app that his delegation included Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov, a close adviser to the president and the deputy foreign minister. “The key issue of the negotiations is an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of troops from the territory of Ukraine,” Zelensky’s office said.

The Kremlin had said it was willing to talk — on the condition that Ukraine “demilitarize and denazify,” making it clear it expected Ukraine’s capitulation. A Russian delegation member, lawmaker Leonid Slutsky, said Sunday that Russia was “quite uncompromising in our position” and expected swift agreement from Ukraine.

Along with accepting the loss of the eastern Donbas region, recognized as two independent states by Russian President Vladimir Putin a week ago, Putin has demanded that Ukraine end its hopes of joining NATO, remove all its weapons and recognize Crimea as part of Russia.

The planned start of the talks was delayed several times for logistical reasons related to the travel of the Ukrainian delegation, according to the leader of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky. The Ukrainian delegation was flying to the talks on a helicopter provided by Poland, according to Belarusian state news agency BeITA. “We are interested in reaching some kind of agreement as soon as possible,” Medinsky said.

A day earlier, Zelensky expressed pessimism about the talks, saying said he did “not really believe in the outcome of this meeting” but said it was important that, as president, he tried to stop the war.

The talks came with Russia’s ruble crashing and uncertainty about the rapidly unfolding impact on its economy. Putin cited Western sanctions and “aggressive” statements Sunday when he put his nuclear forces on alert.