Russia-Ukraine live updates: Ukrainian forces hold Kyiv amid fierce fighting as Russian advance slows

The German government said Saturday that it supports cutting off Russia from a key financial transactions mechanism in a “targeted and functional” way, marking a possible breakthrough for governments that had urged Berlin to back more decisive action against Moscow.

In a statement, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economy Minister Robert Habeck said they were working to determine how “the collateral damage of a SWIFT decoupling can be limited in a way that it hits the right targets.”

It remained unclear on Saturday how such a targeted decoupling would look like — and whether Germany would back less-targeted measures if the plans cannot be implemented in the way it is hoping for.

What is SWIFT and why does it matter in the Russia-Ukraine war?

Germany, the European Union’s biggest economy, has strong trade ties with Russia and heavily depends on its supply of natural gas. It had been a key skeptic of cutting Russia off from SWIFT — a move French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called a “financial nuclear weapon” on Friday.

SWIFT — short for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication — is a messaging network connecting banks around the world. The Belgian-based consortium links more than 11,000 financial institutions operating in more than 200 countries and territories, acting as a critical hub enabling international payments.

Italy, which had also been reluctant to back a SWIFT cutoff, appeared to change course earlier on Saturday, saying that it is now also open to such a move.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been among the biggest supporters of such a measure, the Financial Times reported Thursday. France has also become increasingly vocal in its support.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Friday he had pressed Secretary of State Antony Blinken “to use all US influence on some hesitant European countries to ban Russia from SWIFT.”

Two surveillance camera videos, verified by The Washington Post, show the moment a missile hits a residential high-rise in Kyiv on Saturday morning, as Ukrainian forces fight to hold the capital city.

Images and videos, posted by Ukrainian officials and others, show the damage to the area, as well as firefighters extinguishing flames and evacuating someone from the building, where it appears there are commercial shops on the ground floor.

Through analysis and geolocation of the videos, The Post determined that the missile hit the building from the west. Directly behind the building to the east, in the path of the missile’s approximate trajectory, is a medical center.

Germany on Saturday agreed to authorize the shipment of 400 Dutch-owned rocket-propelled grenade launchers to Ukraine, a significant shift that ends a long-standing German ban on sending weaponry into conflict zones, according to two European Union diplomats who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Germany has come under heavy criticism for its continued reluctance to authorize the shipment of lethal weaponry to Ukraine, even after Russia invaded earlier this week. The country has long shied away from agreeing to send weaponry into wars, although critics note that it has been willing to sell its weapons to authoritarian regimes in the past.

The 400 RPG launchers are currently owned by the Dutch government but were manufactured in Germany; when Germany sells or transfers its weaponry to other countries, it retains control over whether those arms get moved elsewhere. Saturday’s policy shift was the agreement to allow the Netherlands to send the armaments to Ukraine.

The move raised hopes of a broader increase in the flow of weaponry to Ukraine, since Germany is a major arms manufacturer that until now has prevented other European countries from sending German-made equipment to Kyiv. Each request is decided individually, and Germany could theoretically veto others — but the policy shift was nevertheless a clear toughening of Germany’s policy toward Russia.

In the past, Germany has occasionally sent allies weaponry for active use: In 2014, the German army sent RPGs to the Kurdish forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq to help stop the massacre of the Yazidi minority ethnic group.

LVIV, Ukraine — Cranes moved huge concrete blocks into roads leading into Lviv on Saturday, as volunteers filled and stacked sandbags in an attempt to fortify the western city against Russian attack.

As fears of an invasion built in recent weeks, Lviv, 50 miles from the border with the European Union, was considered a safe haven, with some embassies initially evacuating their staff to the city. But now it is bracing for an assault.

Air-raid sirens sounded across the city throughout the day, though no strikes followed. On Saturday morning, a few hundred people gathered at the gates of a military compound to sign up to fight with the city’s territorial defense force. They were told to form units of 10 people.

“Get together in tens, exchange phone numbers and organize,” an officer announced over a loudspeaker. While in other cities volunteers were handed guns, here they were told to wait.

“Enroll, go home, pack, get your documents ready and wait for the call,” the officer said.

Orest Gaworsky, 70, had gathered a group, writing down their names and numbers to submit. He said he was happy with his new comrades.

“There are no losers here,” he said.

Gaworsky served as a civil volunteer in Donbas in 2015, where his vehicle was hit in an explosion.

“I’m too old to run with a gun, but I can sit and shoot,” he said. “We will shoot, we will make molotov cocktails, we will do everything. We’ll fight them with pitchforks!”

On Saturday morning, a high-rise apartment building near one of Kyiv’s international airports was struck by a missile as air raids continued. A residential building also was hit in Kyiv on Friday morning.

Russian troops coming from the north are approaching the Ukrainian capital, which is less than 70 miles from the Belarusian border, and skirmishes were reported on the edge of the city.

MOSCOW — Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that it had orders to “advance in all sectors” of Ukraine, claiming that its attacks had earlier been temporarily halted on the orders of President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin claimed earlier Saturday that Putin ordered Russian troops to halt their advance Friday afternoon to allow for talks with Ukraine. Putin reversed the decision because Ukraine refused negotiate, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Ukrainian officials strongly rejected the assertion that Ukraine was not willing to negotiate.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed that Russia had halted attacks “along key axes” on Friday after Ukraine said it was ready for negotiation but that the assault resumed Saturday.

Questions remained about the Russian claims of a pause, which was not announced at the time and did not materialize as any clear halt to the attacks.

Underscoring the questions were Putin’s inflammatory accusations Friday against Ukraine’s elected government, which he called “this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis,” urging Ukraine’s military to seize power.

Western military analysts have been surprised by some of the difficulties Russian forces have encountered in their first few days, predicting that Russia may sharply escalate the violence in coming days to force Ukraine’s capitulation.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak on Saturday said that any negotiations with Russia to end the invasion must be rooted in common sense instead of brute force.

In a message posted to the Telegram account of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Podolyak denied Russian claims that Ukraine “allegedly refused to negotiate,” saying the claims are a part of the tactics of Russian President Vladimir Putin. While Podolyak acknowledged that “any war inevitably ends with negotiations,” more was needed before Ukraine got to that point.

“They are trying to drive negotiations into a dead end before they even begin,” he said. “It is clear that a different approach is needed.”

Podolyak called on negotiations that would reflect “the interests of the people and the national statehood of Ukraine.” He then pointed to the Russian attacks on Kyiv and how Ukrainians defended the capital with pride and honor.

“By their resistance, Ukrainians have proved that driving us into a dead end is an unrealistic ambition,” he said.

The adviser concluded by reiterating that Zelensky “categorically does not accept any unacceptable conditions and ultimatums for Ukraine.”

“Only full-fledged negotiations,” Podolyak said.

David L. Stern contributed to this report.

As Russian forces close in on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko begged other nations to immediately intervene against the assault that he said has killed civilians.

“It’s happening in the heart of Europe,” Klitschko said in a video posted to Twitter. “There’s no time to wait, because it’s going to lead into the humanitarian catastrophe.”

Klitschko repeatedly implored the rest of the world not to wait to respond.

“You need to act now to stop Russian aggression with anything you can have,” he said. “Now. In an hour or by tomorrow, it’s going to be too late.”

Klitschko also warned that Ukrainians who are on the streets of Kyiv after the city’s nightly curfew will be assumed to be “members of the enemy’s sabotage and reconnaissance groups.”

In the northern city of Chernigov, Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko called upon able-bodied civilians to take up arms to defend their city.

“People, men, with weapons, capable to protect with your own weapon our city, please come to the place of deployment to receive your instructions,” he said in a video shared on Facebook. “Today, all that we can, for the organization of the defense of the city — we won’t give up the city to anyone.”

Atroshenko appealed to other civilians to stay in Chernigov’s shelters and to remain calm.

He ended the video: “Glory to Ukraine.”