Russia-Ukraine live updates: Talks on hold as crisis grows; Zelensky to address U.S. Congress on Wednesday

Ukraine on Monday demanded that Russia be ousted immediately from the Council of Europe, a body charged with upholding human rights on the continent.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal urged the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, meeting in a special session to discuss the invasion, to expel Russia and said that those who “support the invasion have no place in the European family.”

“Ukraine is on fire,” Shmyhal said in a videoconference, standing in for Zelensky, who was scheduled to give the address. “We have to join our efforts not only to defend Ukraine but to defend all of Europe today. We must stop the aggression, to prevent nuclear disaster, to stop all of Europe from catching fire.”

Shmyhal accused Russia of carrying out gross violations of the laws of war, actions that he said accounted for “terrorism and genocide.” He reiterated Ukrainian leaders’ call to “close the sky” over Ukraine by creating a no-fly zone that would require countries — most likely NATO members and other U.S. allies — to declare that Russian military aircraft and missiles are no longer allowed in Ukrainian airspace.

The parliamentary assembly does not have the power to expel a member, but it could recommend that the committee of ministers, the council’s executive body, take such a step, which would signal Europe’s escalating isolation of Russia.

An expulsion would mean that Russians would no longer have recourse to the European Court of Human Rights, Europe’s top human rights court.

The committee of ministers suspended Russia from all its rights of representation a day after the invasion, but none of the 47 member states, including Russia and Ukraine, have been expelled from the council since its creation in 1949.

The assembly is expected to adopt a resolution Tuesday recommending that the committee “invite” Russia to withdraw from the body, Agence France-Presse reported.

Russia’s missile attack on a Ukrainian military base near the Poland border was launched from long-range bombers flying in Russian airspace, the Pentagon said Monday, detailing its latest assessment of the strike that killed at least 35 people and marked a significant escalation in the three-week war.

The attack Sunday in Yavoriv in western Ukraine, about 15 miles from NATO territory, did not disrupt shipments of Western military aid despite Russia’s claims to the contrary, said a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon.

But it has amplified fears in the region, and in the United States, that a miscalculation could drastically widen the war. Thousands of U.S. troops have been sent to Poland and other countries along the alliance’s eastern edge, and President Biden and other Western leaders have maintained that a Russian attack on one would invite a ferocious response.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki expressed concern for the well-being of Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall, who was injured in Ukraine on Monday while covering the Russian invasion.

“I know there’s no final reports, or we would wait for your news organization to confirm those,” Psaki told a Fox News reporter during Monday’s news briefing, “but our thoughts, the president’s thoughts, our administration’s thoughts are with him, his family and all of you at Fox News.”

Hall was injured in Kyiv, Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said in a statement.

“We have a minimal level of details right now, but Ben is hospitalized and our teams on the ground are working to gather additional information as the situation quickly unfolds,” Scott said. “This is a stark reminder for all journalists who are putting their lives on the line every day to deliver the news from a war zone.”

In terms of “specific actions” that the administration would take in response to an attack on an American journalist, Psaki said Biden has led “the world in putting in place consequences, putting in place repercussions and steps in response to the actions of Russia, the brutal actions that have certainly impacted Ukrainian people and now have certainly impacted some Americans.”

“But in terms of next steps or what the next consequence would be, I don’t have anything to preview for you at this point in time,” Psaki added.

Another American journalist, Brent Renaud, was fatally shot while reporting outside Kyiv on Sunday.

U.S. journalist killed in Ukraine was known for his ‘innate humanity and empathy’

A woman burst onto the set of Russian state TV’s flagship evening news program Monday, chanting “Stop the war.”

As longtime Channel One host Ekaterina Andreeva was reading an item about Russian efforts to mitigate the effect of sanctions, a protester jumped into the frame with a poster saying: “No war. Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.” The “No war” phrase was in English, the rest in Russian.

The recording of Monday evening’s live broadcast was unavailable on Channel One’s website, which says it was taken down “at the request of the copyright holder.” All episodes from last week are readily available.

Shortly afterward, Channel One said it is “looking into the incident with an outsider appearing in the shot during a live broadcast,” according to the state-run news agency Tass.

According to OVD-Info, a human rights group that tracks protest activity and detentions in Russia, the woman, identified as Channel One employee Marina Ovsyannikova, has been detained and taken to a police station.

Before storming the set, she recorded a video message in which she called “what is going in Ukraine a crime” and said the responsibility “for this lies only on one person — Vladimir Putin.”

She said her father is Ukrainian and her mother is Russian, adding that “they have never been enemies,” pointing to her necklace resembling combined Russian and Ukrainian flags.

China will face “significant consequences” if it violates the international sanctions against Russia, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.

Psaki did not detail what those repercussions might entail, saying only that the United States would coordinate with its partners and allies to make a determination.

Earlier Monday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan led a delegation of senior U.S. officials to Rome for talks with China on the issue.

“I think what we have conveyed — and what was conveyed by our national security adviser in this meeting — is that should they provide military or other assistance that of course violates sanctions or supports the war effort, that there will be significant consequences," Psaki told reporters at a regular news briefing.

Psaki also said the White House is seeing no signs that Putin is deescalating his attack on Ukraine.

Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall was injured on Monday while reporting outside of Kyiv and is being treated in a hospital, the network announced.

CEO Suzanne Scott told Fox employees in an internal memo that the network has “a minimal level of details right now" regarding Hall’s condition. “Our teams on the ground are working to gather additional information as the situation quickly unfolds," she wrote, asking colleagues to keep him and his family in their prayers.

Scott said that Hall’s injury is "a stark reminder for all journalists who are putting their lives on the line every day to deliver the news from a war zone.” The incident was first publicly reported Monday afternoon by Fox News anchor John Roberts.

Hall, who joined Fox News in 2015, works primarily as a Washington, D.C.-based State Department correspondent. But according to his Fox bio, he has also reported from conflict zones in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.

Hall is believed to be the first American broadcast news correspondent injured while covering the war in Ukraine. His injury came a day after Brent Renaud, an American documentary filmmaker, was fatally shot while reporting outside Kyiv on Sunday.

A bus carrying dozens of refugees from western Ukraine overturned in Italy on Sunday, killing a young mother and injuring others, according to news reports.

The 32-year-old woman was crushed under the bus, Italian daily paper Corriere della Sera said, according to the Associated Press. The woman, who was not named in the news report, is survived by a 5- and 10-year-old, Italian news agency LaPresse reported.

At least five people were injured, and the other passengers aboard the bus that had been on the road for about 20 hours had been evacuated to police barracks for initial assistance before resuming their travels, Italy’s Interior Ministry told AP.

The bus, which was headed to an Italian port city, landed on its side near a field Sunday morning, AP reported. Firefighters had to use two cranes to set the bus upright for removal after survivors were rescued, according to the outlet.

The cause of the crash is under investigation.

About 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded the country nearly three weeks ago, according to the U.N. refugee agency’s chief, Filippo Grandi.

“We also estimate that about [two] million people are displaced inside Ukraine,” he said last week. “Millions forced to leave their homes by this senseless war.”

About 35,000 Ukrainians fleeing the war have entered Italy, the AP reported.

Over the weekend, former president Donald Trump held a rally in South Carolina. Rallies are where Trump is at his most pure, unburdened by the constraints of tenor and rhetoric that often bind his media interviews, and focused solely on what gets the most applause from his audience. Trump often derides polling, but his rallies unquestionably serve the same purpose for him: giving him a chance to test ideas and lines with his most energetic supporters.

Trump’s stated views of the war in Ukraine have shifted over the past few weeks, with one exception. Even now, he’s unwilling to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Nobody can look at the bloodshed much longer, what’s happening,” Trump said of the current state of the war. He added that “it’s just so ridiculous and so senseless and so horrible.”

But in between, he offered his assessment of Putin.

“It’s a lack of respect — for a lot of people, a lot of things. But it’s just a total lack of respect,” Trump said. “And it happens to be a man that is just driven; he’s driven to put it together. … I’ll say it again and again: It should have never happened. If he respected our president, it would have never, ever happened.”