Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russian forces advance in South as Ukraine braces for ‘massive loss of human life’

One of the world’s largest law firms, Linklaters, said Friday that it is closing its Moscow office and winding down its operations in Russia over the Ukraine invasion.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is reprehensible and it is right that we stand together in condemning it,” the British firm said in a statement. “We will not act for individuals or entities that are controlled by, or under the influence of, the Russian state, or connected with the current Russian regime, wherever they are in the world.”

Linklaters said it would try to transfer Moscow employees to new jobs inside or outside Linklaters. The firm employs 2,800 lawyers and has offices in 21 countries, according to its website.

Russia’s business ties to the West took 30 years to build and one week to shatter

The firm opened its Moscow office in 1992, when Western companies had high expectations about Russia’s post-Soviet development.

LONDON — The BBC announced Friday that it was suspending coverage from Russia after Russia’s communications watchdog said it had blocked access to the network and several foreign news organizations’ websites for spreading what it called “false information” about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Access has been restricted to a host of information resources owned by foreigners,” the watchdog, known as Roskomnadzor, said in a statement, according to Reuters. “The grounds for restricting access to these information resources on the territory of the Russian Federation was their deliberate and systematic circulation of materials containing false information.”

Some of the other outlets that have been blocked in Russia include Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Deutsche Welle. The move by Russia’s communications watchdog seems to be targeting state-sponsored news outlets in retaliation for actions taken against RT in recent days. CBC/Radio-Canada, Canada’s public broadcaster for radio and television, announced that it temporarily suspended its reporting from the ground in Russia until it could clarify the Kremlin’s restrictions.

Russia’s Internet censor also announced Friday that it would block access to Facebook, the social network owned by U.S.-based Meta.

In a statement Friday posted to Twitter, BBC Director General Tim Davie said that the new legislation passed by Russian authorities “appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism.”

“It leaves us no other option than to temporarily suspend the work of all BBC News journalists and their support staff in the Russian Federation while we assess the full implications of this unwelcome development,” Davie said.

He added, “We remain committed to making accurate, independent information available to audiences around the world, including the millions of Russians who use our news services.”

Earlier this week, the BBC said that the audience for its Russian language news website more than tripled its year-to-date weekly average and that its live page in Russian covering the invasion was the most visited site across the whole of the BBC World Service’s non-English-language services, with 5.3 million views.

Peter Limbourg, the director general of Germany’s Deutsche Welle, issued a public letter Friday to Russian audiences.

“The situation for free journalism in your country has grown more difficult by the day,” he said. “DW’s Russian programming has a long tradition. We have always sought to portray a complete picture of Russia.” Limbourg urged people in Russia instead to “use Internet block bypass tools to access our channels.”

The European Union this week banned the Russian state-controlled media outlets RT and Sputnik. YouTube, TikTok and Facebook parent company Meta also have blocked access to RT content on their platforms in Europe.

Davie said Friday that the safety of the BBC staff remains “paramount,” and he commended the journalists for “their bravery, determination and professionalism.”

Scenes from the city of Mariupol, under heavy attack in Ukraine’s southeast, have been as grim as they get. No water. No electricity. No heat.

Officials in the encircled city say they can’t offer an accurate estimate of fatalities because no one has been able to leave the relative safety of wherever they’ve taken shelter to go out and find the dead.

Mariupol, a heavily fortified city of 430,000, may be a dismal harbinger of things to come for other Ukrainian cities, as Russian forces — unable to capture the country quickly — carry out siege tactics and mass shelling to take over major metropolitan areas.

A senior Western intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity, warned this week to brace for “massive loss of human life, especially civilians,” in the coming days and weeks as the war in Ukraine enters a new stage.

A leading American Internet service provider, Cogent Communications, said it was severing relations with Russian customers on Friday, a move that gives Ukrainian officials another victory in their campaign to isolate Russia online.

Cogent chief executive Dave Schaeffer said the company did not want to keep ordinary Russians off the Internet but did want to prevent the Russian government from using Cogent’s networks to launch cyberattacks or deliver propaganda targeting Ukraine at a time of war.

“Our goal is not to hurt anyone. It’s just to not empower the Russian government to have another tool in their war chest,” Schaeffer said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Cogent, based in Washington, D.C., is one of the world’s largest providers of what’s known as Internet backbone — roughly comparable to the interstate highway system, providing the primary conduit for data flows that local companies then route to individual domains. Schaeffer said Cogent’s networks carry about one-quarter of the world’s Internet traffic. Cogent has several dozen customers in Russia, with many of them, such as state-owned telecommunications giant Rostelecom, being close to the government.

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Vice President Harris will travel to Poland and Romania next week to show support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as the member countries unite in opposition to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

“Her visit will demonstrate the strength and unity of the NATO Alliance and U.S. support for NATO’s eastern flank Allies in the face of Russian aggression,” Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary to the vice president, said in a statement. “It will also highlight our collective efforts to support the people of Ukraine.”

U.S. intelligence and foreign policy experts have said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was partly based on his belief that NATO had become less unified in recent years. The Biden administration has pointed to multiple countries in the organization stepping up to aid Ukraine in its fight against Russia as proof of the alliance’s resolve.

Harris will meet with Polish and Romanian leaders to further coordinate the countries’ response to Russia.

Singh said the vice president and global leaders will discuss ways to continue economic, security and humanitarian support for Ukraine and determine how to expand the consequences inflicted on Russia.

“The vice president’s meetings will also focus on how the United States can further support Ukraine’s neighbors as they welcome and care for refugees fleeing violence,” she said.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese officials have been working hard to discourage a catchphrase that has emerged over the last week, “Today Ukraine, Tomorrow Taiwan.”

Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the slogan has been repeated in local headlines, discussed in panels and discussion groups and uttered by jittery citizens worried that the war will embolden their similarly powerful and aggressive neighbor China, which claims Taiwan should be under its rule.

In Taiwan, where residents have for years been numb to Beijing’s threats and intimidation — including daily incursions into their air defense identification zone, military exercises simulating attacks on the island and cyberattacks — there is a growing realization that the status quo may no longer hold.

“I believe that today’s Ukraine is tomorrow’s Taiwan,” said Lung Wei-chen, a 69-year-old retired soldier from the southern city of Kaohsiung.

The list of entities boycotting Moscow continues to grow as companies and sporting bodies protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Tech giant Microsoft and hosting service Airbnb announced that they were stopping their operations in Russia on Friday, while the International Gymnastics Federation said Russian and Belarusian gymnasts are banned indefinitely from competing in competitions.

The Washington Post has compiled a non-exhaustive list of some of the boycotts launched globally since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine.

The Pentagon’s spokesman called on Russia to be more responsible about the targets they choose to attack in Ukraine, warning that the overnight strike on a nuclear power plant could have easily “visited a lot more damage and destruction” on Ukraine and its neighbors — a category that includes Russia.

“We continue to call on Russia to stop the invasion period … but certainly short of that to be more mindful of their obligations under international law,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Friday, noting that nuclear power plants “are not designed to withstand combat.”

The Russian operation continues to press into Ukraine, with what the Pentagon estimates are 92 percent of the forces they had prestaged now in the country. Defense officials also count a total of more than 500 Russian missile strikes since the fighting began.

The Russian advance in southern Ukraine has claimed the city of Kherson and is now waging an assault on Mykolaiv, Kirby said. A senior defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ground movements, previously surmised that Mykolaiv could be used to stage a ground assault on Odessa, a major port city on the Black Sea coast.

“We don’t know for sure if the Russians are going to use a land route to assault Odessa,” Kirby cautioned, adding that “as of this morning we hadn’t seen any significant naval activity to lead us to believe that an assault on Odessa is imminent.”

He also added that Ukrainian forces continue to have some success in their efforts to “thwart” the advance of a convoy in the north of the country toward Kyiv.

“We do believe that the actions by the Ukrainians have in fact stalled that convoy, certainly slowed it down, stopped it in some places,” Kirby noted, though he declined to detail what weapons or ammunition Ukrainian forces had used in such strikes, or whether they had been supplied by the United States.