Russia-Ukraine war highlights: Will defend NATO territory, but won't fight WWIII for Ukraine, says Biden

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Russia controls 70% of Luhansk Oblast, reports AFP News Agency quoting Luhansk Oblast Governor Serhiy Haidai.

YouTube is immediately blocking access around the world to channels associated with Russian state-funded media, it said on Friday, citing a policy barring content that denies, minimizes or trivializes well-documented violent events. Read more

Negotiations aimed at restoring Iran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers went on what its European hosts described as "a pause" on Friday, after Russia demanded relief from sanctions targeting Moscow over its war on Ukraine. Read more

US sanctions Russians over support for North Korea weapons program, reports AFP.

Russian shelling prevented evacuees leaving the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol again on Friday while elsewhere Russian forces also stopped some buses of people trying to flee the Kyiv region, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

“By calling this meeting, the aggressor state has shot itself in foot once again. Ukraine runs a health system that is in full compliance with its international obligations. The rest is a bunch of insane delirium of Putin and his henchmen. Russia does not give a monkeys about the safety of its own citizens, including the thousands of decomposing bodies of Russian soldiers. Soldiers sent by Russian President Putin to Ukraine to this ongoing carnage,” says Ukrainian Ambassador to UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, at UNSC meeting Ukraine representative at UNSC meeting.

I regret that the Security Council is now being now manipulated by the Russian Federation to promote such an insane delirium, he adds.

“We call upon you to think about a very real biological danger for people in European countries, which can result from an uncontrolled spread of bioagents from Ukraine. If there's such a scenario then all of Europe will be covered by it,” says Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN.

President Joe Biden said the US will defend “every inch” of NATO territory, even if it means World War III – but not Ukraine, which is why the U.S. won’t establish a no-fly zone.

Europe will ban the export of luxury goods from bloc to Russia, reports news agency AFP quoting European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen.

Canadian Trade Minister, Mary Ng on Friday condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and said that it is a challenge to the rule-based system, reports ANI.

President Joe Biden again ruled out any direct intervention by the United States to halt Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Friday, warning that such conflict pitting the NATO alliance against the Kremlin "is World War III.", reports AFP.

President Joe Biden will move on Friday to revoke Russia's "most favored nation" trade status, joining with allies to punish Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, reports Reuters.

Putin is an aggressor and he must pay the price, says US President Joe Biden.

Russia's attack on Ukraine will "deeply destabilise" food supplies in Europe and Africa as some of the world's most fertile agricultural land goes unplanted, French President Emmanuel Macron warned Friday, reports AFP.

Russian media regulator restricts access to Instagram, reports AFP. 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday the European Union "should do more" for his embattled country, a day after EU leaders doused its hopes of quick accession to the bloc, reports AFP.

United States vice President Kamala Harris and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis met on Friday amid growing concerns about the influx of displaced people fleeing Ukraine for Romania and elsewhere in eastern Europe because of Russia's invasion, reports AP.

Three missiles hit civilian buildings in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, destroying a shoe factory and killing one security guard, reports AFP.

Five Indian students are still stuck in the south Ukrainian city of Kherson, reports news agency PTI.

Establishing humanitarian corridors in Ukraine for evacuations and aid is the "bare minimum" to be done now, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday, adding it was important for the top Russian and Ukrainian diplomats to have met.

The EU said Friday that the talks it is chairing on the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear accord must be paused, days after fresh demands from Russia complicated negotiations, reports AFP.

Two and a half million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded and another two million have been internally displaced by the war, the United Nations said Friday.