Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday that Israel would send 100 tons in humanitarian aid to Ukraine, including water-purification kits, medical equipment and tents expected to arrive within days.
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The premier said Israel was proceeding "with moderation and responsibility" on a conflict testing its ties to Kyiv and Moscow. Bennett refrained from condemning Russia, instead expressing hope that the "conflict will be resolved before the war spreads even more." He made no mention of Ukrainian appeals on Israel to mediate in the crisis with Russia.
While Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has censured the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Bennett has stopped short of such remarks. Israel is wary of clashing with Russia, especially over next-door Syria, where Moscow has military sway.
Earlier on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected an offer by Russian officials to meet for talks in Belarus, saying while Kyiv is eager to conduct such negotiations, it would only do so in a neutral country.
Had there been no aggressive action taken from Belarus, we could talk in Minsk, Zelensky said. "Of course we want peace. We want to meet. We want the war to end. Warsaw, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul, Baku – we've offered them to the Russians. Any other city would suit us, too – in a country, from whose territory missiles are not launched at us. This is the only way negotiations can be honest and can really end the war."
A Russian delegation of military officials and diplomats had arrived in the Belarusian city of Homel on Sunday morning, saying they were "ready for talks" with the Ukrainians.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko criticized Ukraine for the refusal, saying Zelenskyy better join the negotiations lest he wants to lose Ukraine.
Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian president called on foreign volunteers to aid the besieged country and called for the removal of Russia's veto power at the United Nations.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv was establishing an "international" legion for foreigners wishing to volunteer in support of Ukraine.
"This will be the key evidence of your support for our country," he said in a statement.
British Foreign Liz Truss later said she supported any British person choosing to head to Ukraine individually if "that is what they want to do."
Meanwhile, SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk said on Saturday that the company's Starlink satellite broadband service is available in Ukraine and SpaceX is sending more terminals to the country, whose internet is said to have been disrupted due to the Russian invasion.
"Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route," Musk tweeted.
He was responding to a tweet by Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov who asked Musk to provide the embattled country with Starlink stations.
Elon Musk, while you try to colonize Mars, Russia is trying to occupy Ukraine. While your rockets successfully land from space, Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civilians, Fedorov tweeted.
Internet connectivity in Ukraine is said to have been affected by the Russian invasion, particularly in the southern and eastern parts of the country where fighting has been heaviest, internet monitors said on Saturday.
As the incursion continues, the UN has warned that up to five million Ukrainians could be forced to flee abroad as fuel, cash and medical supplies run low in parts of the country amid a Russian incursion.
Several thousand Ukrainians have already crossed into neighboring countries, UN refugee agency spokesperson Shabia Mantoo said.
According to Poland's Deputy Interior Minister Pawel Szefernaker, some 100,000 Ukrainians have crossed into Poland, including 9,000 on Saturday.
"We are looking at ranges of one to three million into Poland... A scenario of one to five million including all surrounding countries," Afshan Khan, UNICEF's regional director for Europe and Central Asia, said.
European Union member Poland, which has the region's largest Ukrainian community of about one million people, has seen a mass of refugees at its borders since the Russian invasion began.
Missiles pounded Ukraine's capital of Kyiv on Friday as Russian forces pressed their advance into Saturday morning.
"As we speak, there have been major attacks in Kyiv that have created great fear and panic among the population with families really scared," Khan said.
"We are still trying to see which civilian infrastructure in Ukraine has been hit where."
The director noted that UNICEF is focusing on cash assistance to families and that the effect of Western sanctions on Russia will be analyzed in terms of the aid pipeline.
In addition, the International Judo Federation has suspended Vladimir Putin as honorary president and ambassador. The Russian president is a judo black belt.
The decision is one of a number of sports "sanctions" announced in recent days.
Russia's Formula 1 Grand Prix, due to take place in Sochi in September, has been canceled.
And earlier in the week it was announced that the 2022 Champions League final would be played in Paris rather than St. Petersburg.
In related news, a hacker collective known as Anonymous disabled several Russian government websites on Sunday, including state-controlled Russia Today.
The collective said it also managed to briefly take down "Russian propaganda station" RT.com, as well as the websites of the Kremlin, the Russian government, and the Russian defense ministry.
Already on Feb. 15, Anonymous video posted a video on Facebook threatening to take Russia's industrial control systems "hostage" if the Ukraine crisis escalated.
On Saturday, Fedorov said Ukraine would create an "IT army" to fight against Russia's digital intrusions.
Ukraine has called its hacker underground to help protect critical infrastructure and conduct cyber spying missions against Russian troops.
"We are creating an IT army," Fedorov wrote in a tweet that linked to a channel on the Telegram messaging app which published a list of prominent Russian websites.
"There will be tasks for everyone. We continue to fight on the cyber front. The first task is on the channel for cyber specialists,"
The Telegram channel listed the websites of 31 major Russian businesses and state organizations including energy giant Gazprom, Russia's second-largest oil producer Lukoil, three banks, and a handful of government websites.
Kremlin.ru, the official website of the Kremlin and the office of Putin, was taken offline on Saturday in an apparent distributed denial of service attack.
Malicious data-wiping software was discovered circulating in Ukraine last week, hitting hundreds of computers, according to researchers at the cybersecurity firm ESET.
Suspicion fell on Russia, which has repeatedly been accused of hacks against Ukraine and other countries. The victims included government agencies and a financial institution.
Britain and the US said Russian military hackers were behind a spate of DDoS attacks last week that briefly knocked Ukrainian banking and government websites offline before the Russian invasion.
Russia has denied the allegations.
Over the weekend, many countries saw protesters take to the street in opposition of the incursion, including in Israel.
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Saturday to decry Putin's actions. Social media showed swarms of people of all ages holding signs and chanting, calling on the Israeli government to stand up against Moscow.
Several ambassadors to Israel from the former Soviet Union were present at the event, according to reports.
"We stand with the people of Ukraine and hope for an immediate end to this war," the pro-Israel NGO Stand With Us wrote in a Facebook post alongside an image from the rally.
Attendees reportedly marched from Tel Aviv's Habima Square to the Russian embassy. Police kept the protestors several dozen meters away from the mission, according to media reports.
In Russia too, protesters spoke out against the invasion, even as the government's official rhetoric grew increasingly harsher.
Street protests, albeit small, resumed in the Russian capital of Moscow, the second-largest city of St. Petersburg and other Russian cities for the third straight day, with people taking to the streets despite mass detentions on Thursday and Friday. According to OVD-Info, a rights group that tracks political arrests, at least 460 people in 34 cities were detained over anti-war protests on Saturday, including over 200 in Moscow.
Open letters condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine kept pouring, too. More than 6,000 medical workers put their names under one on Saturday; over 3,400 architects and engineers endorsed another while 500 teachers signed a third one. Similar letters by journalists, municipal council members, cultural figures and other professional groups have been making the rounds since Thursday.
A prominent contemporary art museum in Moscow called Garage announced Saturday it was halting its work on exhibitions and postponing them "until the human and political tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine has ceased."
"We cannot support the illusion of normality when such events are taking place," the statement by the museum read. "We see ourselves as part of a wider world that is not divided by war."
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An online petition to stop the attack on Ukraine, launched shortly after it started on Thursday morning, garnered over 780,000 signatures by Saturday evening, making it one of the most supported online petitions in Russia in recent years.
Statements decrying the invasion even came from some parliament members, who earlier this week voted to recognize the independence of two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, a move that preceded the Russian assault. Two lawmakers from the Communist Party, which usually toes the Kremlin's line, spoke out against the hostilities on social media.
Oleg Smolin said he "was shocked" when the attack started and "was convinced that military force should be used in politics only as a last resort." His fellow lawmaker Mikhail Matveyev said "the war must be immediately stopped" and that he voted for "Russia becoming a shield against the bombing of Donbas, not for the bombing of Kyiv."
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Beauty kills?
Anastasia Lenna, Ukraine's representative in the 2015 Miss Grand International beauty contest, has answered the call to defend her home, The New York Post reported on Saturday.
Lenna shared with her 75,000 followers a photo of herself in military uniform and holding a gun. Earlier in the day, she posted a photo of armed soldiers blocking a roadway with the caption, "Everyone who crosses the Ukrainian border with the intent to invade will be killed!"
Since the beginning of the invasion on Thursday, she has shared a series of posts urging support for Ukraine and donations to its military.
