Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia expands Ukraine claims; Germany halts Russian gas pipeline

Jonathan Finer, the White House principal deputy national security adviser, used the term “invasion” Tuesday to describe Russia’s deployment of troops into two pro-Russian separatist regions of Ukraine.

“We think this is, yes, the beginning of an invasion, Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine, and you’re already seeing the beginning of our response,” Finer said during a CNN interview in which he was pressed on whether the term is appropriate. He added that the White House would have more to say Tuesday about additional sanctions on Russia in response to the “egregious step they took yesterday away from diplomacy and down the further path toward war.”

He made the comments after a weekend in which Biden administration officials sought to hit back at Russia’s aggressive action while stopping short of declaring that it had officially invaded Ukraine, which would trigger an array of hard-hitting sanctions that President Biden has been warning about for months.

Instead, the United States imposed a smaller set of sanctions prohibiting U.S. investment and trade specifically in the breakaway regions.

During the interview, Finer rejected any suggestion that there is a semantic difference between “invasion” and “beginning of an invasion.”

“An invasion is an invasion, and that is what’s underway,” he said.

“For the third or fourth time, I am calling it an invasion,” Finer said later in the interview.

In addition to the U.S. sanctions announced Monday, Finer also noted that Germany has announced it would halt the regulatory approval process for Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline project between Germany and Russia, following Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

KYIV, Ukraine — Scores of Ukrainian service members gathered outside the country’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday morning for a somber ceremony honoring Capt. Anton Sydorov, 35, an intelligence officer who was killed in a shelling attack in the Donbas region on Feb. 19. He left behind three young daughters.

Six men in dress uniform carried Sydorov’s casket along the driveway in front of the ministry before lowering it onto a bier in front of his relatives and top Ukrainian officials, including Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. They then carefully draped the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag over his casket. Reznikov described him as a “warrior who defended his country.”

“Excuse us for what happened,” he said, addressing Sydorov’s family. “But we will not forget that. And we will not forgive either.”

Lt. Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, reflected on Sydorov’s “cheerful character, his thirst for life.”

“Most importantly, we will find the man who killed him,” he said. “And will terminate him.”

Oleksandr Levchenko, who previously served under Sydorov, said he expects difficult times ahead but vowed not to panic.

“I will be here [in Kyiv] until the very last moment,” he said. But, he added, “should it be needed, I will go to the east right away.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in Washington on Tuesday as the United States and its allies prepare to step up their response to Russia’s recognition of two breakaway enclaves in eastern Ukraine and its move to send troops there in what could be a precursor to a wider invasion.

The two leaders spoke by phone Monday to discuss an executive order signed by President Biden blocking trade and investment by Americans in the separatist enclaves, along with additional measures set to be announced Tuesday, according to State Department spokesman Ned Price.

Blinken wrote on Twitter that Russia’s move “to recognize the ‘independence’ of so-called republics controlled by its own proxies is a predictable, shameful act.”

Blinken also spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, as Beijing continues to walk a tightrope of supporting Russia without explicitly endorsing its actions against Ukraine.

Wang said the legitimate security concerns of any country should be respected, according to a readout from Beijing. He also called on all parties involved to “exercise restraint” and resolve the crisis through negotiation, noting that the situation in Ukraine is “getting worse.”

LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is considering “a request” from Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry to “sever diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.”

“After the press conference, I will work on this issue,” he said. “And not only this question.”

Ukraine and Russia still maintain diplomatic and economic relations with each other, despite the eight-year-old conflict in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv government forces and Kremlin-backed militants.

Ukraine officially refers to Russia as an “aggressor nation” but has stopped short of cutting off relations or declaring war, as this could trigger a full-scale Russian attack or deliver a significant blow to the country’s fragile economy.

But Zelensky also said that Ukrainian officials still believe that there would not be a “powerful escalation” in the conflict by Russia.

BRUSSELS — The European Union on Tuesday will announce sanctions on Russia, the bloc’s top diplomat said, although the timing and scope of the potential measures remain unclear.

For weeks, European officials have been warning of “massive” sanctions in the case of further Russian escalation. However, the bloc has been split on the question of what counts as an escalation and what the package should include.

After Russia formally recognized two breakaway enclaves in eastern Ukraine on Monday, European leaders promised swift and coordinated action. Their decision about what that might look like is expected after an emergency meeting of E.U. foreign ministers in Paris on Tuesday evening local time.

The big question is whether the bloc will immediately issue the type of comprehensive sanctions package it has been touting, or — as looks more likely — take a narrower, more incremental approach along the lines of what the United States has already announced.

President Biden on Monday issued an executive order that expanded on existing sanctions, blocking new U.S. investment, trade and property transactions in the two separatist enclaves. U.S. officials said more would be announced Tuesday.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday that Britain will also introduce “immediate” economic sanctions against Russia, saying a “first barrage” is on its way.

MOSCOW — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected Ukraine’s sovereignty Tuesday in inflammatory remarks that underscored Russia’s military threat against Ukraine, with Moscow’s troops massed on Ukraine’s borders and inside separatist regions.

Lavrov, commenting on Russia’s recognition of two separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine, argued that because Kyiv lost control of the regions to separatists in 2014, Ukraine is not a sovereign nation.

Lavrov’s comments skirted Russia’s role in fomenting the separatist rebellions after it annexed Crimea in 2014 and in providing military support to the rebels — although it denies doing so.

Only states that represent the entire population in their territory are entitled to sovereignty, and “no one can argue that the Ukrainian regime, starting from the coup d’etat in 2014, represents the entire people living on the territory of the Ukrainian state,” Lavrov told state television.

Russia’s 2014 military intervention in Ukraine came shortly after the country’s Maidan revolution — also called the Revolution of Dignity — which ousted a pro-Moscow leader. Moscow consistently refers to that popular uprising as a “coup.”

Russia’s recognition of the separatists, which paves the way for new military intervention in Ukraine, reflects President Vladimir Putin’s determination to prevent it ever joining NATO or deepening ties with Europe and strengthening its military and its democracy, in what appears to be a personal obsession.

He has also used the Ukraine crisis as leverage to demand that Washington and NATO accept his terms on reshaping Europe’s security architecture — pulling back NATO forces and materiel, ending military cooperation with Ukraine and other states and halting the alliance’s open-door policy.

Lavrov’s comments repeated aspects of Putin’s rambling, belligerent televised speech to the nation explaining his move to recognize the separatists, when he called Ukraine’s 2014 revolution a “coup” and asserted that Ukraine had never been a fully sovereign country.

Putin continued Tuesday to pile the blame for the crisis on Kyiv, saying Russia always tried to find mutually acceptable solutions but that relations frayed after 2014.

“Regretfully, we have not seen such a level and quality of interaction with Kyiv since the coup in Ukraine. It is gone. Please note that it happened after the coup and the illegal seizure of power,” Putin said, speaking in the Kremlin when meeting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday that Berlin would halt the regulatory approval process for Nord Stream 2, a controversial gas pipeline project between Germany and Russia, following Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

“Without this certification Nord Stream 2 cannot start to operate,” he said in a news conference Tuesday. He spoke after reports emerged that Russia has moved troops into separatist regions of eastern Ukraine but before Moscow said Tuesday that its recognition of the independence of those regions includes territory now under Ukrainian government control.

Whether or not to publicly threaten to switch off the pipeline in case of a Russian incursion into Ukraine had been a sticking point between the United States and the German government as measures to deter Russian aggression have been examined in recent weeks.

In his previous public comments, Scholz had refrained from directly saying that it would be switched off if Russia were to invade Ukraine, while President Biden had said that would happen.

Scholz gave no clear indication of how long the certification process for the newly completed but yet-to-be-switched-on $12 billion pipeline project might be delayed.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba hailed Germany’s move on Twitter. The suspension of the certification of Nord Stream 2 “is a morally, politically and practically correct step in the current circumstances,” he wrote. “True leadership means tough decisions in difficult times. Germany’s move proves just that.”

David L. Stern contributed to this report.

LONDON — Russian President Vladimir Putin has “gravely miscalculated” the situation and has “completely torn up international law,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday.

“I’m afraid all the evidence is that President Putin is indeed bent … on a full-scale invasion of the Ukraine, the overrunning, the subjugation of an independent, sovereign European country, and I think, let’s be absolutely clear, that will be absolutely catastrophic,” he said.

Johnson said Britain would soon unveil sanctions that would “hit Russia very hard” and that more would be done “in the event of an invasion.”

Earlier in the morning, Health Secretary Sajid Javid told Sky News that “we are waking up to a very dark day in Europe.”

“We have seen that [Putin] has recognized these breakaway eastern regions in Ukraine, and from the reports we can already tell that he has sent in tanks and troops,” he said. “From that you can conclude that the invasion of Ukraine has begun.”