The head of Russia's space agency has threatened to crash the International Space Station into Earth in response to US sanctions on Roscomos.
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In response to these sanctions, Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, tweeted: "If you block cooperation with us, who will save the International Space Station from an uncontrolled orbit and fall into the United States or Europe?"
He pointed out that the station's orbit and location in space are controlled by Russian-made engines.
"There is also the possibility of a 500-ton structure falling on India and China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect? The ISS does not fly over Russia, therefore all the risks are yours. Are you ready for them?"
Built and run by the US, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada, the ISS has shown how countries can cooperate on major projects in space. The station has been continuously occupied for over 20 years and has hosted more than 250 people from 19 countries.
What came to be known as the International Space Station was first conceived on NASA drawing boards in the early 1980s. As costs rose past initial estimates, NASA officials invited international partners from the European Space Agency, Canada, and Japan to join the project.
Around the size of a football field, the space station travels at a speed of about 17,400 miles per hour. The laboratory outpost, orbiting some 250 miles above Earth, is currently home to a crew of four Americans, two Russians, and a German astronaut.
The body that governs the operation of the space station is the Multilateral Coordination Board. This board has representatives from each of the space agencies involved in the ISS and is chaired by the US. The board operates by consensus in making decisions on things like a code of conduct for ISS crews.
While the overall operations of the station are run by the Multilateral Coordination Board, things are more complicated when it comes to the modules themselves.
The new US sanctions are designed to "degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday asked the European Union to allow Ukraine to gain membership under a special procedure immediately as it defends itself from invasion by Russian forces.
"Our goal is to be with all Europeans and, most importantly, to be equal. I'm sure that's fair. I am sure we deserve it," he said in a video speech shared on social media.
Also Monday, Lithuania's government announced it would ask prosecutors at the International Criminal Court to investigate "war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine."
"There is new material coming in every day, but we have enough of it by now to file the request," Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said in a televised cabinet meeting.
A delegation of Ukranian officials arrived at the border with Belarus Monday morning for talks with Russian. Ijn a statement the Ukrainian President's Office said the talks would largely be aimed at reaching an immediate ceasefire and ensuring the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from the country.
Earlier Monday, Ukraine's state-run nuclear company Energoatom on Monday denied reports that Russia had taken over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, Interfax Ukraine news agency said.
Last week Russian forces gained control over the site of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear disaster.
Meanwhile, a senior US intelligence official said Belarus was expected to send troops into Ukraine as soon as Monday to fight alongside Russian forces that invaded Ukraine last week.
Belarus has been providing support for Russia's war effort but has yet to play a direct role in the conflict.
The American official, who has direct knowledge of current US intelligence assessments, said Monday that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko would decide whether to further involve his country further in the war on the basis of talks between Russia and Ukraine in the coming days.
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Sunday responded to Putin's order earlier that day to place Russian nuclear deterrent forces on high alert in response to what he called "aggressive statements" by leading NATO powers.
"This is really a pattern that we've seen from President Putin through the course of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don't exist in order to justify further aggression – and the global community and the American people should look at it through that prism," Psaki said in an interview with ABC's "This Week."
Another senior White House official told CNN: "At every step of this conflict, Putin has manufactured threats to justify more aggressive actions − he was never under threat from Ukraine or from NATO, which is a defensive alliance that will not fight in Ukraine," the official said.
"The only reason his forces face a threat today is because they invaded a sovereign country, and one without nuclear weapons. This is yet another escalatory and totally unnecessary step," they said.
The explosions and gunfire that have disrupted life since the start of the invasion appeared to subside around Ukraine's capital overnight as the Kremlin's military advances were slowed by an outgunned but determined resistance.
Ukraine's embattled leader, meanwhile, agreed to talks with Moscow, and Western nations planned to send arms and other supplies to the country's defenders.
Moscow has so far failed to win full control of Ukraine's airspace, despite advances across the country. US officials say they believe the invasion has been more difficult, and slower, than the Kremlin envisioned, though that could change as Moscow adapts.
The conflict – seemingly more quiet overnight Sunday than in past nights – could evolve significantly if Russia gets military help from neighboring Belarus, which is expected to send troops into Ukraine as soon as Monday, according to a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of current US intelligence assessments who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The official said that whether Belarus enters the war depends on Ukraine-Russia talks set to happen in the coming days.
Amid the mounting pressure, Western nations said they would tighten sanctions and buy and deliver weapons for Ukraine, including Stinger missiles for shooting down helicopters and other aircraft. European countries will also supply fighter jets to Ukraine, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
Zelenskyy's office, meanwhile, announced plans for a meeting with a Russian delegation at an unspecified location on the Belarusian border.
It wasn't immediately clear when the meeting would take place, nor what the Kremlin was ultimately seeking, either in those potential talks on the border or, more broadly, from its war in Ukraine. Western officials believe Putin wants to overthrow Ukraine's government and replace it with a regime of his own, reviving Moscow's Cold War-era influence.
Facebook parent-company Meta Platforms said a hacking group used the social media platform to target a handful of public figures in Ukraine, including prominent military officials, politicians, and a journalist, amid Russia's ongoing invasion of the country.
Meta said in the last 48 hours it had also separately removed a network of about 40 fake accounts, groups, and pages across Facebook and Instagram that operated from Russia and Ukraine targeting people in Ukraine, for violating its rules against coordinated inauthentic behavior.
A Twitter spokesperson said it had also suspended more than a dozen accounts and blocked the sharing of several links for violating its rules against platform manipulation and spam. It said its ongoing investigation indicated the accounts originated in Russia and were attempting to disrupt the public conversation around the conflict in Ukraine.
In a blog post on Monday, Meta attributed the hacking efforts to a group known as Ghostwriter, which it said successfully gained access to the targets' social media accounts. Meta said the hackers attempted to post YouTube videos from the accounts portraying Ukrainian troops as weakened, including one video which claimed to show Ukrainian soldiers coming out of a forest and flying a white flag of surrender.
Ukrainian cybersecurity officials said on Friday that hackers from neighboring Belarus were targeting the private email addresses of Ukrainian military personnel "and related individuals," blaming a group code-named "UNC1151."
Meta's security team said it had taken steps to secure targeted accounts and had blocked the phishing domains used by the hackers. It declined to give the names of any of the targets but said it had alerted users where possible.
Meta said the separate influence campaign, which used a number of fictitious personas, claimed to be based in Kyiv and ran a small number of websites masquerading as independent news outlets. These outlets published claims about the West betraying Ukraine and Ukraine being a failed state.
The company said it had found links between this influence network and an operation it removed in April 2020, which it connected to individuals in Russia, the Donbass region in Ukraine, and two Crimea-based media outlets now sanctioned by the US government.
Meta declined to give a number of impressions or views for the influence campaign's content but said it had seen a "very low level" of shares, posts, or reactions.
The European Union's chief executive on Sunday expressed unequivocal support for Ukraine becoming a member of the bloc, calling the country now under attack from Russia "one of us."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made her comments to Euronews in an interview hours after the 27-nation EU decided for the first time in its history to supply weapons to a country at war. A source told Reuters it would send 450 million euros ($507 million) of weaponry to Ukraine.
"Indeed over time, they belong to us. They are one of us, and we want them in," von der Leyen told Euronews.
Ukraine, a democratic nation of 44 million people, won independence from Moscow in 1991 at the fall of the Soviet Union and has pushed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Western military alliance and the EU, goals Russia vehemently opposes.
Less than four days after it started, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered a Western political, strategic, economic, and corporate response unprecedented in its extent and coordination.
Meanwhile, BP, the energy giant formerly known as British Petroleum, said Sunday it is exiting its share in Rosneft, a state-controlled Russian oil and gas company, in reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
BP has held a 19.75% stake in Rosneft since 2013. That stake is currently valued at $14 billion.
London-based BP also said its CEO, Bernard Looney, and former BP executive Bob Dudley will immediately resign from Rosneft's board.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the UK's secretary of state for business and energy, said he welcomed BP's decision.
"Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine must be a wake-up call for British businesses with commercial interests in Putin's Russia," Kwarteng said in a tweet.
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