Families are enjoying the sun on the bank of the Dnieper river in Kyiv on Sunday, February 20. (Ivana Kottasova/CNN)
Last Sunday, Kyiv was a buzzing European city with hip cafes, artwork at every corner and fresh sushi available on demand at midnight. Now, it’s a war zone.
Sirens blasting through the city, the the unmistakable loud bangs of explosions and strikes. The transformation inflicted on the city by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been surreal.
Just a week ago, Dniprovsʹkyy Park was full of runners and cyclists taking advantage of the sunny weather to get their Sunday workout done.
Cyclists pass the National Museum of History of Ukraine in the Second World War on Sunday, Ferbruary 20. (Ivana Kottasova/CNN)
The traffic-free park sits on an island across the river from the old town, its banks lined by sandy city beaches where kids are normally running around, watching the ducks swim by.
In the historical Mariinskyi Park families were strolling around, with kids enjoying the park’s playground that features large boat-shaped monkey bars.
Now, the same city is reeling from a steady stream of news of yet another terrifying incident. A six-year-old boy killed in heavy gunfire. A high-rise apartment building being hit. The dam of Kyiv reservoir destroyed. The streets are deserted, the sense of dread hanging in the air.
Many have fled the city, encouraged by the authorities to go while there still was a chance. The state railway company has been dispatching extra trains heading to the west for days now, Kyiv’s main train station full of families hoping to get onto the next one.
The same people who were happily shopping in fashion stores lining Kyiv’s boulevards, dining at trendy restaurants are now hunkered down in basements, underground parking lots and subway stations.
Instead of hanging out with friends, enjoying the sunshine, they are now sleeping on the floors, trying to calm their children that don’t understand why they can’t go to kindergarten.
Despite the shock and suffering brought in recent days, Kyiv’s residents are showing incredible resolve and defiance.
Within hours after the invasion started, more than 18,000 have responded a call to defend the city, collecting their firearms from authorities, according to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov.
In the hotel where many western journalists are staying in the city center, the staff, who are now staying there instead of being at home with their families, are alternating between distributing blankets and water bottles in the bomb shelter and serving four different types of egg dishes at the buffet breakfast.
A vast explosion lits up the Kyiv night sky on Sunday, February 27. (Sean Walker/CNN)
And Kyiv’s roads once clogged with heavy traffic are now empty. The electronic signs that were displaying traffic updates just last week are now showing a very different message: “Glory to Ukraine!”
A traffic sign seen on a deserted street in central Kyiv says “Glory to Ukraine” on Saturday, February 26. (Ivana Kottasova/CNN)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered the mobilization of reservists as Russian troops poured into Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and Western nations announced measures to punish Moscow for recognizing two Russian-controlled statelets there as independent, signaling the potential rising economic price on Russia for further aggression.
Mr. Zelensky, in a televised address, said Russia’s threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty is forcing him to recall contract military personnel to active duty and to mobilize members of the newly created territorial defense brigades for exercises. He said Ukraine wouldn’t carry out a general mobilization of civilians, urging them to continue normal life.
Wall Street also headed lower as traders returned from the holiday weekend. The Dow(INDU) dropped nearly 300 points, or 0.8%. The S&P 500(SPX) was down 0.6%, while the Nasdaq(COMP) shed 0.7%.
European markets also fell. The FTSE 100(UKX) dipped 0.4% in London, while France’s CAC 40(CAC40) shed 0.8%. Germany’s DAX(DAX) tumbled 1.4%. Russian stocks dropped 6.9%, after crashing more than 10% Monday, and the ruble weakened against the dollar for the fourth consecutive trading session.
Japan’s Nikkei 225(N225) fell 1.7%, while China’s Shanghai Composite(SHCOMP) dropped 1%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index(HSI) fell 2.7%, its biggest daily loss in five months.
“It feels like the situation can dramatically escalate at any moment and that’s going to keep investors on edge for now,” wrote Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, in a research note on Tuesday. “We may well be on the brink of something terrible happening and that’s continuing to feed into the negativity in the markets,” he added.
Oil surges
Escalating uncertainty about Ukraine was reflected by a spike in energy prices. US crude futures jumped 5.4% to trade at $95.65 per barrel. Brent crude, the global benchmark, surged 3.8% to $99.17 per barrel.
Russia is one of the world’s biggest producers of oil. It is also a major exporter of natural gas.
Investors fear that conflict in Ukraine could limit or stop the flow of Russian gas into Europe, making it much more expensive for people to heat and light their homes. In 2020, Russia accounted for about 38% of the European Union’s natural gas imports, according to data agency Eurostat.
The region’s biggest economy, Germany, is particularly exposed as it weans itself off of coal and nuclear power. So are Italy and Austria, which receive gas via pipelines that run through Ukraine.
Western countries would likely respond to a Russian invasion of Ukraine with punishing sanctions that could cut Russian banks off from the global financial system and make it more difficult for the country to export its oil and gas.
Chinese tech stocks hammered
Worries about a renewed tech crackdown by Beijing also dealt a blow to some of the biggest Chinese companies in the sector on Tuesday.
The Hang Seng Tech Index, which tracks 30 largest tech companies listed in the city, lost 1.9%, down for a third day in a row.
On Friday, Chinese authorities released new rules ordering food delivery platforms to cut service fees they charge businesses. Online food delivery platform Meituan fell 5% on Tuesday. The stock has plunged 23% since Friday.
Alibaba Group(BABA), which owns food-delivery platform Ele.me, dropped 3%. Social media and gaming giant Tencent(TCEHY) fell as much as 3%. It closed down 0.1%. The firm also holds a major stake in Meituan.
MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday ordered troops into separatist-held eastern Ukraine and hinted at the possibility of a wider military campaign, delivering an emotional and aggrieved address to his nation that laid claim to all of Ukraine as a country “created by Russia.”
After the speech, state television showed Mr. Putin at the Kremlin signing decrees recognizing the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, which were formed after Russia fomented a separatist war in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The decrees, published by the Kremlin, directed the Russian Defense Ministry to deploy troops in those regions to carry out “peacekeeping functions.”
The action by Mr. Putin, who has commandeered the world’s attention with an enormous deployment of troops along Ukraine’s border in recent weeks, was the most blatant yet in a confrontation that Western officials warn could escalate into the biggest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.
It was a momentous decision for Mr. Putin, a reversal of his eight-year-old strategy to use the separatist enclaves the Kremlin backed with arms and money as a means of pressuring Ukraine’s government without recognizing them outright as independent from Ukraine itself.
But he continued to keep the world guessing about his next steps, signaling in his hourlong speech that his goals extended beyond the enclaves. He laid out such a broad case against Ukraine — describing its pro-Western government as a dire threat to Russia and to Russians — that he appeared to lay the groundwork for action against the rest of the country.
He even went so far as to describe Ukraine’s elected pro-Western leaders as stooges and cast them as the aggressors — even though Russia has 190,000 troops, including allied separatist fighters, surrounding Ukraine.
“As for those who captured and are holding onto power in Kyiv, we demand that they immediately cease military action,” Mr. Putin said at the end of hisspeech, referring to Ukraine’s capital. “If not, the complete responsibility for the possibility of a continuation of bloodshed will be fully and wholly on the conscience of the regime ruling the territory of Ukraine.”
It was a thinly veiled threat against the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky, which denies that it is responsible for the escalating shelling on the front line between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists in recent days. Russian state television has broadcast extensive reports claiming, without evidence, that Ukraine is preparing an offensive against the separatist territories.
After the speech, Mr. Zelensky spoke to President Biden and called a meeting of his Security and Defense Council, and later said Ukraine is “not afraid of anyone or anything.” The council’s secretary, Oleksiy Danilov, urged nervous Ukrainians not to trust rumors.
“A great powerful information provocation is being waged against our state,” Mr. Danilov said. “But it is necessary to trust only official information.”
The White House said Mr. Biden would impose sanctions against people doing business in the separatist regions, and that it would, possibly as soon as Tuesday, “announce additional measures related to today’s blatant violation of Russia’s international commitments.”
The leaders of the European Union condemned the recognition “in the strongest possible terms,” and a spokesman for the secretary-general of the United Nations said the move was “inconsistent with the principles” of the U.N. charter.
“This is clearly a unilateral violation of Russia’s international commitments and an attack on the sovereignty of Ukraine,” said a statement from President Emmanuel Macron of France, who spoke to Mr. Putin at 1 a.m. Moscow time on Monday in a frantic bout of diplomacy aimed at resolving the crisis.
The United States and allied nations denounced Russia on Monday at an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting over the Ukraine crisis, calling Moscow’s recognition of the two separatist regions and the deployment of Russian troops to them a blunt defiance of international law that risks war.
The unusual late-evening meeting, requested by Ukraine, quickly turned into a diplomatic rebuke of Russia.
“Russia’s clear attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is unprovoked,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American U.N. ambassador, said. Ridiculing Mr. Putin’s assertion that Russian forces had been deployed as peacekeepers, she said: “This is nonsense. We know what they really are.”
Mr. Putin’s recognition of the territories represents a sharp departure from how the Kremlin has approached Ukraine over the last eight years. After establishing the breakaway republics in 2014, the Kremlin decided not to recognize their independence even as it quietly backed them militarily and offered Russian citizenship to their residents.
The strategy, analysts said, was to use the unresolved conflict as a pressure point on Kyiv, which signed peace accords in Minsk in 2015 that required Ukraine to grant a special status to the eastern regions. The accords were never carried out, with their interpretation varying widely in Kyiv and Moscow, and Mr. Putin said on Monday that Ukraine had made clear “it planned to do nothing” to implement them.
“How long can this tragedy continue?” Mr. Putin asked, repeating his false claims that Ukraine was waging a “genocide” against Russian speakers in the region. “How long can we continue to bear this?”
Mr. Putin’s speech began with an extensive recitation of his historical grievances, starting with claims that Ukraine owes its statehood to the Soviet Union: “Modern-day Ukraine was in full and in whole created by Russia — Bolshevik, Communist Russia to be precise.”
They were arguments that Mr. Putin had made before, but he laid them out in his nationally televised address Monday evening with an intensity and, at times, anger that the president had rarely displayed in his 21 years in power.
“You want de-communization?” Mr. Putin went on, referring to Ukraine’s efforts to take down Lenin statues and other symbols of the Communist past. “We are ready to show you what real de-communization would mean for Ukraine.”
Not only was Ukraine rejecting its shared past with Russia, Mr. Putin went on, but it was enabling American ambitions to weaken Russia by aspiring to membership in the NATO alliance. He repeated his previous statements that the United States had the ability to base missiles in Ukraine that could hit Moscow within minutes; Mr. Biden denies such plans. Mr. Putin even claimed that Ukraine could develop nuclear weapons, raising the specter of “weapons of mass destruction” in the neighboring country.
“Why was it necessary to make an enemy out of us?” Mr. Putin said, repeating his long-held grievances about NATO’s eastward expansion. “They didn’t want such a large, independent country as Russia. In this lies the answer to all questions.”
Beyond Mr. Putin’s intensive history lesson — which would be disputed by many Ukrainians, who see themselves as a separate country with their own identity — the Russian president said little about his next steps. For instance, he did not address that the separatist “people’s republics” are claiming about three times as much territory as they currently control.
Some analysts have speculated that Mr. Putin could use Russian troops to capture more Ukrainian territory on behalf of those republics. But his threat against Kyiv at the end of his speech signaled he was prepared to take the fight to Mr. Zelensky’s government directly. American officials have said such an outcome is possible given the size of Mr. Putin’s troop buildup to Ukraine’s north, east and south, estimated to be between 150,000 and 190,000 soldiers.
The recognition of the separatist statelets was reminiscent of a similar tactic Russia used in Georgia, which like Ukraine, was promised NATO membership in 2008 but without a fixed schedule. Breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia enticed Georgia to fight to restore its territory in 2008, and the regions beat back the Georgians with the aid of Russian troops. They declared independence and were recognized by Russia, which keeps troops in both statelets.
Mr. Putin’s Ukraine speech came after a carefully choreographed day of mounting drama over the fate of the country and its 44 million people. Russian state television offered extensive reports of Ukrainian shelling against civilian targets in the separatist regions, which Ukraine denied. The Russian military claimed it had killed five Ukrainian “saboteurs” who trespassed onto Russian territory.
“I emphasize once again that the Ukrainian army is not planning any offensive actions,” Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, said in a news conference in Kyiv. “Nowhere. We stand for the return of our people and territories through political and diplomatic means.”
But Ukraine’s assurances appeared to be ignored in Moscow. Russian television broadcast videotaped appeals from the two leaders of the separatist republics pleading with Mr. Putin to recognize their enclaves’ independence.
The Kremlin then released more than an hour of footage of a special meeting of Mr. Putin’s Security Council, at which senior officials took turns explaining why the president should recognize the republics’ independence. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told Mr. Putin that the Finance Ministry and Central Bank were ready to manage the impact of any Western sanctions.
“These risks have been worked through rather well,” Mr. Mishustin said.
Some officials told Mr. Putin that he should go further, raising the possibility that the Kremlin was considering more extensive action. Speaking last, Viktor V. Zolotov, Mr. Putin’s former bodyguard and the head of Russia’s National Guard, hinted that the Kremlin needed control of more than just Ukraine’s eastern regions to eliminate what it considers the threat posed by the country’s pro-Western shift.
“We don’t have a border with Ukraine — we have a border with America, because they are the masters in that country,” Mr. Zolotov said. “Of course we must recognize the republics, but I want to say that we must go farther in order to defend our country.”
“A decision will be made today,” Mr. Putin said at the end of that meeting, keeping his nation and the world in suspense until his televised speech hours later.
Anton Troianovski reported from Moscow, Valerie Hopkins from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Steven Erlanger from Brussels. Reporting was contributed by Marc Santora from Kyiv, Andrew E. Kramer from Severodonetsk, Ukraine, Ivan Nechepurenko from Tagonrog, Russia, Michael D. Shear from Washington, and Rick Gladstone from New York.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia chairing a meeting with members of his country’s security council in Moscow on Monday.Credit…Alexey Nikolsky/Sputnik, via Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
With the dispatch of armed forces by Russia and the promise of sanctions by the United States, the Ukraine conflict entered a perilous new chapter on Tuesday as the path to a diplomatic solution quickly narrowed.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has been unsparing in terms of what lies ahead, calling Ukraine little more than a “puppet” of the United States, its leaders solely responsible for whatever “bloodshed” may come next. Mr. Putin has also raised the specter of fighting after deploying troops to the two breakaway regions of Ukraine that Russia just recognized.
“As for those who captured and are holding on to power in Kyiv,” he said, referring to the Ukrainian capital, “we demand that they immediately cease military action.”
Ukraine’s leaders braced for the possibility of an intense fight to defend their territory, offering a somber message to troops on Tuesday. “Ahead will be a difficult trial,” the defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, said in a statement released by the military. “There will be losses. You will have to go through pain and overcome fear and despondency.”
White House officials have said that President Biden will impose economic sanctions on the separatist regions of Ukraine, and that a further Western response will be announced on Tuesday. By then, several of Mr. Biden’s aides said, they already expected to see Russian forces rolling over the border into Ukraine, crossing the line that Mr. Biden had set for imposing “swift and severe” sanctions on Moscow.
In recent weeks, some 150,000 to 190,000 Russian troops, by Western estimates, have gradually drawn a noose around their neighbor, and the United States has warned repeatedly that the question about a Russian invasion was not if but when.
Video clips of military convoys moving through the separatist territories were circulating on social media on Tuesday, but there was no immediate official confirmation that these were Russian troops rather than the forces of Russian-backed separatists.
On the Ukrainian side, similarly unconfirmed reports on social media appeared to show the Ukrainian Army moving heavy weaponry, such as self-propelled artillery guns and tanks, toward the front line with the separatist enclaves.
The United States and its allies swiftly condemned Russia’s actions on Monday to recognize the separatist regions, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics created after Russia fomented a separatist war in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Twitter that “Russia’s move to recognize the ‘independence’ of so-called republics controlled by its own proxies is a predictable, shameful act.” He added that he had told Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, that the United States condemned the actions in the “strongest possible terms.”
At an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting late Monday, several nations rebuked Russia, saying that the move amounted to a violation of the United Nations Charter and an attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty. Although the meeting ended with no action taken, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said that council members had “sent a unified message — that Russia should not start war.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, in a televised statement on Monday, urged Ukraine’s allies to take action immediately and called for the Ukrainian people to remain calm.
“We are on our own land,” he said. “We are not afraid of anything or anyone.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Reznikov, the defense minister, reiterated the country’s posture, saying that the Kremlin had recognized not the two breakaway regions, but rather “its own aggression against” Ukraine.
“We are ready and able to defend ourselves and our sovereignty,” he said on Twitter. “World cannot be silent. Sanctions? Another brick in the wall? New Berlin Wall?”
Washington — The U.S. has intelligence that Russian commanders have received orders to proceed with an invasion of Ukraine, with commanders on the ground making specific plans for how they would maneuver in their sectors of the battlefield, a U.S. official told CBS News.
The orders don’t mean a invasion is a certainty, as Russian President Vladimir Putin could still change the orders if he changes his mind, the official said.
After weeks of warning that an invasion of Ukraine was imminent, President Biden told reporters on Friday that he was “convinced” Putin had made the decision to invade Ukraine and said the U.S. believed Russian forces intended to attack in the “coming days.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told “Face the Nation” that the U.S. still believes Russia is “moving forward” with plans to invade, despite denials from Moscow that Russia is preparing to launch an attack.
“Everything we’re seeing tells us that the decision we believe President Putin has made to invade is moving forward,” Blinken said. “We’ve seen that with provocations created by the Russians or separatist forces over the weekend, false flag operations, now the news just this morning that the ‘exercises’ Russia was engaged in in Belarus with 30,000 Russian forces that was supposed to end this weekend will now continue because of tensions in eastern Ukraine, tensions created by Russia and the separatist forces it backs there.”
Blinken says Russia “moving forward” with inv…
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Russia has massed roughly 150,000 troops, warplanes and equipment on Ukraine’s three sides, escalating tensions with the neighboring country. The defense minister of Belarus also announced Russia will be extending military drills taking place in the country near Ukraine’s northern borders, which brought a large contingent of Russian troops to Belarus.
In anticipation of an attack, the U.S. and other allies, most recently Germany and Austria, have urged their citizens to leave the country. The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine also temporarily relocated its operations from Kyiv to Lviv due to the acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a security alert on Sunday warning that “according to media sources, there have been threats of attacks against shopping centers, railway and metro stations, and other public gathering places in major urban areas, including Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as in areas of heightened tension along the Russian border with Ukraine.”
The alert from the State Department urges U.S. citizens in Russia to take several actions, including avoiding crowds and having evacuation plans that don’t rely on federal government assistance.
While top U.S. officials have warned Russia is poised to strike Ukraine and the Pentagon has sent roughly 5,000 troops to Eastern Europe to bolster NATO forces, the Biden administration continues to keep a diplomatic option on the table. The president has stressed no American forces would go into Ukraine if Russia invades.
“My job as a diplomat is to leave absolutely no stone unturned and see if we can prevent war, and if there’s anything I can do to do that, I’m going to do it,” Blinken said Sunday. “President Biden has made very clear that he’s prepared to meet President Putin at any time in any format if that can help prevent a war. Even if the die is cast, until it’s settled, until we know that the tanks are rolling, the planes are flying, and the aggression has fully begin, we’re going to do everything we can to prevent it but we’re prepared either way.”
Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., said Ukrainian officials are using “every possibility” to force Russia to choose the diplomatic path rather than an attack.
“We are calling not only on [the] aggressor, which is Russia, but also on all of our friends and allies to get together and use every opportunity to still deter Russia from invading,” she told “Face the Nation.”
Markarova said that while Ukraine will “work day and night to make use of any possibility to still prevent Russia from invading,” events of the past few days indicate that an escalation is likely, contrary to comments from Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov that there is no plan for Russia to invade.
“What we see right now are all the strong messages are yet to get Russia not only to get out from the borders of Ukraine but they also, during the past three days, started an offensive,” she said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, too, has called on Putin to meet with him to work to resolve the crisis, but he also criticized Western leaders gathered at a security conference in Munich on Saturday, arguing they should not wait for an attack to hit Russia with sanctions.
The Biden administration has warned that if Putin orders an attack on Ukraine, there would be steep consequences for Russia, and Blinken said Sunday that slapping Russia with sanctions now would mean the loss of the “deterrent effect.”
“Once you trigger the sanctions, you lose the deterrent effect,” he said. “As long as there is still even a minute’s worth of time in which we can deter and prevent a war, we’re going to try to uses it.”
Blinken added that the U.S. doesn’t want to detail its plans publicly, as “that will forewarn Russia.”
David Martin
David Martin is CBS News’ National Security Correspondent.
On Monday, a judge ruled that Heather Morgan, aka Razzlekhan, should be released on bail after she and her husband were arrested for allegedly helping to launder billions of dollars worth of stolen Bitcoin. Morgan and her husband Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein were already granted bail last week by another judge, but the government got an emergency stay on the previous order, saying that the couple could potentially use millions of dollars worth of un-seized Bitcoin to flee the country.
Monday’s hearing took place to review the release order and consider further prosecution and defense evidence. You can read both of the written arguments below, which largely reflect what the parties argued in court. The presiding judge decided that Morgan could await her trial at home if she made bail, but she didn’t overturn the stay for Lichtenstein, meaning that he would stay in custody.
The couple was arrested on allegations that they tried to launder some of the 119,754 Bitcoin stolen in the 2016 Bitfinex hack. While the government seized most of that crypto (worth around $3.6 billion last week), it claims in court documents that there are still millions of dollars worth that it hasn’t been able to get its hands on yet. It also says that the couple purchased 70 gold coins with funds linked to the attack, which it didn’t find while searching the couple’s apartment (it did discover empty hollowed-out books, a bag of burner phones, and several hardware cryptocurrency wallets).
Following her arrest, Morgan got a lot of attention on social media after it was discovered that she’d been posting rap music, videos, and fashion content under the name Razzlekhan. Clips of particularly cringe-worthy moments from her music videos have been shared online since the news of her arrest, alongside incredulous comments that the person rapping about being the “Crocodile of Wall Street” was involved with the Bitfinex hack.
During Monday’s hearing, the government argued that Morgan and Lichtenstein could use the un-seized funds or gold to escape to a country that wouldn’t be particularly willing to extradite them, such as Russia or Ukraine (Lichtenstein was born in Russia and renewed his passport in 2019, according to the government). It also argued that they’d be motivated to do so, given that they could face substantial financial penalties and 25 years in prison if convicted of fraud and money laundering.
The couple’s lawyer argued that they were unlikely to flee for several reasons — Morgan is currently recovering from surgery, and both her and Lichtenstein’s parents had posted their houses as collateral for their bail. He also argued that if they had wanted to flee, they would’ve done so in the week or two leading up to the arrest, asserting they would’ve realized the government was on to them after receiving notice of a subpoena from an ISP, and seeing the funds seized. The prosecution responded by saying that it was very unlikely the couple realized how much evidence the government had until they were arrested, given that much of it was obtained by cracking encrypted files Lichtenstein had stored on a cloud service.
The judge said that Lichtenstein wouldn’t be granted bail because the government’s evidence alleges he was largely in control of the funds — Morgan, she reasoned, was less likely to have access to funds that would help her escape. She said that Morgan would have to follow the conditions outlined in the original release order, which include house arrest, an ankle bracelet for location monitoring, restrictions on computer use, and a ban on carrying out cryptocurrency transactions.
The argument for why Lichtenstein and Morgan should be allowed bail, prepared by their lawyers
The government’s argument why Lichtenstein and Morgan shouldn’t be allowed bail
The U.S. State Department has ordered non-emergency employees to leave the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, ahead of a possible Russian invasion.
“Today, the [State Department] ordered non-emergency U.S. employees at the Embassy to depart due to continued reports of a Russian military build-up on the border with Ukraine, indicating potential for significant military action,” the embassy tweeted early Saturday morning.
Diplomatic sources told CBS News that embassy evacuations started overnight. But not all of the staff will be leaving the country, Christina Ruffini reports for “CBS Saturday Morning.” Some will be going to Lviv — a city closer to the Polish border — to provide limited services for Americans who might need them.
As of Sunday, consular services at the Kyiv embassy will be suspended.
“U.S. citizens should not travel to Ukraine, and those in Ukraine should depart immediately using commercial or other privately available transportation options,” said a travel advisory for Ukraine issued on Saturday.
The U.S. embassy building in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Bloomberg via Getty
The White House is telling all Americans they have less than 24-48 hours to get out.
“If you stay, you are assuming risk, with no guarantee that there will be any other opportunity to leave and there … no prospect of a U.S. military evacuation,” said national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Sullivan repeated warnings Friday that the State Department has issued for weeks. But the message for Americans to leave Ukraine came with a new sense of urgency.
“We obviously cannot predict the future,” he said. “We don’t know exactly what is going to happen. But the risk is now high enough and the threat is now immediate enough that this is what prudence demands.”
The Pentagon press secretary also said Saturday that 160 members of the Florida National Guard who have been in Ukraine since November — advising and mentoring Ukrainian forces — will be moved “elsewhere in Europe,” “out of an abundance of caution.”
U.S. officials say Russia now has 80% of the forces it will need to launch a full-scale invasion, and the rest are en route. More than 100,000 Russian troops are amassed along Ukraine’s borders — to the east, in Russia, and the north, in Belarus.
“We’re in a window when an invasion could begin at any time. And to be clear, that includes during the Olympics,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The U.S. is deploying additional forces to bolster the American military presence in Eastern Europe. The Pentagon announced on Friday it is sending 3,000 more troops into Poland. They will join the 3,000 others already there and in Romania, to reinforce allies should Putin decide to make a move.
The White House says the American military is not going into Ukraine to fight Russia, or even to help evacuations.
“That’s a world war, when Americans and Russians start shooting at one another,” President Biden said in an interview with NBC.
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin knows not to put American lives at risk.
“I’m hoping that if in fact he’s foolish enough to go in, he’s smart enough not to in fact do anything that would negatively impact on American citizens,” he said.
Sources told CBS News about 7,000 Americans have registered with the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, but there could be as many as 30,000 in Ukraine. However, many of them have family members, business interests or homes in Ukraine they might not want to leave.
In a phone call Saturday, Secretary of State Blinken spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “to discuss acute and shared concerns that Russia may be considering launching further military aggression against Ukraine in the coming days,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.
Blinken told Lavrov that pursuing a diplomatic path to resolve the crisis would require Russia “to deescalate and engage in good-faith discussions.”
According to Price, Blinken also reminded his Russian counterpart that invading Ukraine “would result in a resolute, massive, and united Transatlantic response.”
Mr. Biden and Putin spoke on the phone Saturday morning. No details about their discussion were immediately available.
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Russia Could Invade Ukraine at Any Time, U.S. Says
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, warned that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could launch a major assault on Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, but said that Mr. Putin had not reached a final decision yet.
“We are in the window when an invasion could begin at any time should Vladimir Putin decide to order it. I will not comment on the details of our intelligence information, but I do want to be clear: It could begin during the Olympics. We encourage all American citizens who remain in Ukraine to depart immediately. We want to be crystal clear on this point. Any American in Ukraine should leave as soon as possible and in any event, in the next 24 to 48 hours. We obviously cannot predict the future. We don’t know exactly what is going to happen, but the risk is now high enough and the threat is now immediate enough that this is what prudence demands. If you stay, you are assuming risk with no guarantee that there will be any other opportunity to leave, and there — no prospect of a U.S. military evacuation in the event of a Russian invasion.” Reporter: “Does the United States believe that the president — pardon me — that President Putin has made a decision because PBS NewsHour just reported a little bit ago that the United States does believe that Putin has made a decision, and has also communicated that decision to the Russian military. Is that accurate?” “The report that you just referenced, which I have not seen yet, it does not accurately capture what the U.S. government’s view is today. Our view is that we do not believe he has made any kind of final decision or we don’t know that he has made any final decision, and we have not communicated that to anybody.”
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, warned that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could launch a major assault on Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, but said that Mr. Putin had not reached a final decision yet.CreditCredit…Photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
President Biden plans to speak with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Saturday in a bid to defuse the crisis over Ukraine, as the State Department ordered nonemergency U.S. personnel to leave the American Embassy in Kyiv over fears that Moscow would soon mount a major assault.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken also said that he would speak with Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, on Saturday to press for Russia to pull back the land, sea and air forces it has built up on three sides of Ukraine, and to engage in diplomacy to resolve what has grown into one of the gravest security threats in Europe since the Cold War.
“We’re in the window when a Russian invasion can start at any time if President Putin so decides,” Mr. Blinken told reporters on Saturday in Fiji, where he was on a weeklong tour of the Pacific.
U.S. intelligence officials had thought Mr. Putin was prepared to wait until the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing before possibly ordering an offensive, to avoid antagonizing President Xi Jinping of China, a critical ally. In recent days, they say, the timeline began moving up, an acceleration that Biden administration officials began publicly acknowledging on Friday.
“We continue to see signs of Russian escalation, including new forces arriving at the Ukrainian border,” Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, told reporters, adding that an invasion could begin “during the Olympics,” which are scheduled to end on Feb. 20.
U.S. officials do not know whether Mr. Putin has decided to invade, Mr. Sullivan insisted. “We are ready either way,” he said. “Whatever happens next, the West is more united than it has been in years.”
Border with Russian units
Transnistria, a
Russian-backed
breakaway region
of Moldova.
Russia invaded and
annexed the Crimean
Peninsula from
Ukraine in 2014.
Approximate line
separating Ukrainian and
Russian-backed forces near
two breakaway provinces.
Border with
Russian units
Russia annexed
the Crimean
Peninsula from
Ukraine in 2014.
Transnistria, a
Russian-backed
breakaway region
of Moldova.
Approximate line
separating Ukrainian
and Russian-backed
forces.
The United States has picked up intelligence that Russia is discussing next Wednesday as the target date for the start of military action, officials said, acknowledging the possibility that mentioning a particular date could be part of a Russian disinformation effort.
The combination of the Russian troop movements and the new information about a possible date helped to trigger a flurry of diplomatic activity and public warnings by the NATO allies on Friday. The Kremlin said Mr. Putin would also speak again on Saturday with President Emmanuel Macron of France.
The State Department said on Saturday that all nonemergency U.S. employees would depart the embassy in Kyiv because of the Russian military buildup, leaving only a core team of American diplomats and Ukrainian staff members. Consular services at the embassy will be suspended starting on Sunday, the department said, emphasizing that all Americans in Ukraine should leave the country immediately.
“Despite the reduction in diplomatic staff, the core embassy team, our dedicated Ukrainian colleagues, and @StateDept and U.S. personnel around the world will continue relentless diplomatic and assistance efforts in support of Ukraine’s security, democracy, and prosperity,” the embassy said on Twitter.
The United States has ruled out sending troops to defend Ukraine but has increased deployments to NATO member countries in Eastern Europe, and on Friday the Pentagon ordered 3,000 more soldiers to Poland.
The White House is eager to avoid a repeat of the chaotic evacuation of the U.S. Embassy staff from Kabul last year as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. The United States and several other countries — including Britain, Denmark, Japan, Latvia and Norway — have issued a series of increasingly urgent calls for their citizens to leave Ukraine.
Russia has accused Western countries of spreading misinformation about its intentions. On Saturday, its Foreign Ministry said it was pulling some of its diplomatic personnel out of Ukraine because it was “drawing the conclusion that our American and British colleagues seem to know about certain military actions.”
Britain’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, told Sky News on Saturday that British nationals in Ukraine should not expect a military evacuation and that they should “leave Ukraine immediately by any means possible.”
The news of one of the biggest money laundering schemes in history captivated the world on Tuesday, not so much because of the crime—which involved $4.5 billion in bitcoin and is, yeah, a big deal—but rather because of the couple accused of carrying it out. They are the weirdo Bonnie and Clyde of the crypto world, and Netflix wants you to know all about them and their alleged plot.
It took only three days for the streaming giant to commission a documentary series on Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, who were arrested this week for a purported conspiracy to launder 119,754 bitcoin linked to the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
Given how obsessed Hollywood seem to be with stories about failures, fraud, and bad behavior in the tech world lately, the story’s appeal was obvious. In addition, how often do you meet a (bad) rapper—Morgan, whose stage name is “Razzlekhan”—who throws down about everything from the coronavirus to AirPods?
“Netflix has ordered a documentary series about a married couple’s alleged scheme to launder billions of dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrency in the biggest criminal financial crime case in history,” the company said in a news announcement on Friday.
The docuseries will be directed by Chris Smith, who has experience in real stories about failure and fraud. He directed FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, a Netflix documentary about the disastrous FYRE festival that scammed investors and left hundreds of attendees stranded on an island. In addition, Smith was the executive producer of the TV series documentary Tiger King.
In its announcement, Netflix drummed up the drama around Lichtenstein and Morgan’s alleged wrongdoing.
“As the value of the stolen Bitcoin soared from $71 million at the time of the hack to nearly $5 billion, the couple allegedly tried to liquidate their digital money by creating fake identities and online accounts, and buying physical gold, NFTs, and more–all while investigators raced to track the money’s movement on the blockchain,” the company said.
Netflix did not reveal a release date for the documentary series.
