Image source, Getty Images

Russia's foreign ministry has called on other nations to follow its example and recognise the rebel regimes in eastern Ukraine.

Have they?

Well, earlier on Tuesday, Nicaragua and Syria said they backed Moscow's decision to recognise Donetsk and Luhansk as independent, though it is unclear whether they will follow suit.

No other country recognises the self-declared People's Republics - though another Russian-backed breakaway region, South Ossetia, gave its support to the regimes there in 2015.

South Ossetia is a breakaway part of Georgia which gained independence after a military intervention by Russia in 2008. It is recognised by a handful of Moscow's allies.

Amid the Western condemnation, there have been voices of support for President Putin's actions.

Cuba’s communist government has accused the West of targeting Moscow with a “propaganda war”.

Earlier this month North Korea called on the US to cease what it called it’s “hostile policy” of “isolating and weakening Russia”.

Iranian media has also been largely sympathetic to Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

Ukraine has received plane loads of weapons and military gear from Nato countries in recent weeks, as fears rise of a full-blown Russian attack.

Canada's Minister of National Defence has tweeted that a second delivery of "lethal aid" has now been sent from their end.

It comes hours after Canada joined Western allies in imposing financial sanctions on Russia.

Image source, TASS via Getty Images

Western sanctions will hit world markets and affect the well-being of Americans - but will not force Moscow to change its foreign policy, the Russian ambassador to the US is quoted as saying by Russia's Ria Novosti news agency.

"There is no doubt the sanctions imposed against us will hurt the global financial and energy markets," Anatoliy Antonov said.

He warned that the US would also be affected, and ordinary Americans "will feel all the consequences of rising prices".

Analysts say America's economic exposure to Russia is comparatively small, but President Biden has himself conceded that sanctioning Russia could have an impact on energy prices at home.

"The American people understand that defending democracy and liberty is never without cost," Mr Biden previously said. "I will not pretend this will be painless."

Image source, Reuters

Scott Morrison opened his address by echoing the US' statements that "the invasion of Ukraine has effectively already begun".

He strongly condemned the "unprovoked" and "unacceptable" action.

Mr Morrison also said Russia was "at peak readiness to now complete a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and that is likely to occur within the next 24 hours. There are even reports already of shelling and things of that nature which could indicate that it has already begun."

He added that liberal democracies needed to stand together to oppose authoritarian states "seeking to have their way".

Image source, Getty Images

US President Joe Biden warned that the US and its allies would need to "impose costs" on Russia in a 2017 essay - a strategy he reiterated at the White House on Tuesday.

In a 2017 essay, external in Foreign Affairs magazine written with Michael Carpenter, Biden wrote that Putin and his allies were "likely to continue their assault on Western democracy".

Countering Russia's actions, he added, would require Washington and its allies to not "only play defence".

"They must also agree to impose meaningful costs on Russia when they discover evidence of its misdeeds," the essay says. "At the same time, to prevent miscalculations, Washington needs to keep talking to Moscow."

Additionally, Biden and Carpenter wrote that Nato should continue to forward-deploy troops to Eastern Europe.

The essay argued that these and other economic steps would serve as a signal to the Kremlin that "the costs of such behavior will eventually outweigh any perceived benefits."

PM Scott Morrison says Australia's immigration department has also been instructed to prioritise visa applications from people wishing to come from Ukraine.

He said there were about 430 applications currently - including student visas, family visas and others.

There are about 38,000 people of Ukrainian descent living in Australia. Mr Morrison said there are believed to be 1400 Australian citizens inside Ukraine at the moment.

A day after branding Russia's moves "unacceptable, [...] unprovoked [and] unwarranted", Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison says his nation will also impose sanctions on the breakaway regions of Ukraine.

Australia's sanctions will target banks, transport, energy, oil, gas and telecommunications.

"We will be standing up to Russia, along with all of our partners and all those who believe that it's totally unacceptable that Russia could invade its neighbour," Mr Morrison told reporters in Australia.

Eight Russian individuals would be affected by Australia's sanctions, local media reported.

Japan has now announced a set of sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he would ban the issuance of Russian bonds in Japan, and impose visa bans and asset freezes on a number of Russian individuals.

Kishida said Moscow's recent decision to order troops into eastern Ukraine had violated Ukraine's sovereignty.

He stressed that Tokyo was prepared to impose additional measures should the situation escalate.

Image source, EPA

Elected lawmakers in Russia's parliament lined up to voice their support for President Vladimir Putin earlier on Tuesday.

Proposals to send Russian forces to Ukraine's Donbas region will bring peace to the area, said Konstantin Kosachyov who chairs the upper chamber's Foreign Affairs Committee.

The senior lawmaker claimed the move is intended to avoid the kind of military conflict he says the US and Ukraine appear to want.

Earlier today not a single lawmaker in either of the Russian parliament's two chambers voted against the Kremlin decision to recognise east Ukraine's rebel-held territories as "independent".

"Let's thank president [Putin] for his bravery, for his responsible position," lower chamber speaker Vyacheslav Volodin remarked as he opened the voting session.

At one point it appeared that one single MP out of the 400 sitting in the Duma (lower chamber) hadn't voted for one of the deals, but Communist MP Oleg Smolin later clarified that it had his support and explained he had failed to press the voting button in time.

The EU announced it would impose sanctions on all those who voted for what it called "this violation of international law and [the] territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine".

Speaking to the BBC, Maria Finiw says she feels helpless and anxious for the three grandchildren of a friend living in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital.

"It’s just unheard of in this day and age that another country would attack a sovereign state. Imagine Germany deciding to attack Italy or any other country in Europe?"

The retired teacher believes Ukraine's army is stronger now than before and that its soldiers will fight against an invasion.

Andre Metanchuk wants the West to do more to halt Russia's ambitions.

"Everybody's angry, but we've been living with these feelings for the past eight years. [Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.] I think we have to get together and get ready for if something worse is coming. We have to defend what we can."

Peter Stasiw's grandparents moved to the UK from Ukraine after World War Two.

He likens Russia's president to a mastermind chess player. "Wait a bit, move, wait a bit. Crimea was first, then it’s this. And slowly, slowly, he’s going to take more of Ukraine up every six years or so."

The US Treasury Department named five individuals it described as "powerful Russians in Putin’s inner circle believed to be participating in the Russian regime’s kleptocracy, and their family members."

Among those named are Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Aleksandr Vasilievich Bortnikov, and his son Denis, who is currently a deputy president of Russian state-owned financial institution VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company (VTB Bank) and a chairman of the VTB Bank Management Board.

Image source, Getty Images

A third person sanctioned, Petr Fradkov, is the chairman of Promsvyazbank Public Joint Stock Company (PSB), one of the financial institutions separately facing sanctions. His father Mikhail was once prime minister and director of Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SVR.

The last two people named by the US are Sergei Kiriyenko, first deputy chief of staff of the Presidential Office, and his son Vladimir. The younger Kiriyenko is currently the CEO of VK Group, the parent company of the Russian social media platform VKontakte.

As a result of the sanctions, all property and interests of these men are blocked and must be reported to the US government, as well as any entities of which they own - directly or indirectly - 50% or more.

Image source, SATELLITE IMAGE 2022 MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES via EPA

Satellite imagery over the past 24 hours has shown several new troop and equipment deployments in western Russia, according to US space technology company Maxar.

It also reports the appearance of more than 100 vehicles at a small airfield in southern Belarus, near Ukraine's northern border.

Russia's military has not commented.

Massive Belarus-Russian military exercises on Belarusian territory had been due to end on 20 February, but the two allies decided over the weekend to prolong the drills indefinitely, citing escalating tensions in eastern Ukraine.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Canada has now joined the US, UK, EU and others in imposing a range of economic sanctions against Russia.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described Moscow's recent actions in Ukraine as "a further invasion of a sovereign state".

"We will ban Canadians from engaging in purchases of Russian sovereign debt. And we will apply additional sanctions on to state-backed Russian banks and prevent any financial dealings with them," Trudeau said.

He added that Canada would ban its nationals from all financial dealings with the two rebel-held territories in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow recognised as independent states on Monday.

And Trudeau said Russian lawmakers who had backed that decision would also be sanctioned.

Barbara Plett Usher
State Department Correspondent, BBC News

The US financial sanctions unveiled today close off avenues for Moscow to get international financing. They block trade involving two large Russian banks that collectively hold $80 billion in assets. And they sanction Russia’s sovereign debt, which means the government cannot raise money from the West or trade debt in its financial systems.

Mr Biden’s announcement does not include the full package of “swift and severe” penalties we’ve been hearing about from administration officials should Russia invade Ukraine. The US is holding some in reserve with the hope that the threat of more penalties will deter a further invasion.

But the expectation here is that military escalation is more likely than not. At the same time, diplomatic channels are closing.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has cancelled his Thursday meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, saying it doesn’t make sense to go forward with it at this time.

Asked if the administration had underestimated Russia, he said the reverse was true - that it had clearly laid out what Mr Putin was up to all along.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has described Joe Biden's tranche of sanctions against Russia as a strong "first move".

Kuleba, who had a meeting with the US president on Tuesday, told Fox News he had also secured a promise of more weapons from US officials.

But he added that Ukraine isn't asking for US boots on the ground to manage the crisis.

Image source, reuters

After a fast-paced few days, Ros Atkins looks at the key moments of Russia's military build-up in the Ukraine crisis so far.

Following President Biden's address, the Pentagon has confirmed US troop movements within Europe in response to the situation in Ukraine.

Some 800 infantry soldiers will be deployed from Italy to the Baltic region, and as many as eight F-35 fighter jets to Nato's eastern flank, the US Defense Department said.

The US will also send 32 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters to the Baltic region and to Poland, a government official said.

Image source, Reuters

The Russian foreign ministry has announced that its diplomatic personnel in Ukraine will be evacuated to "protect their lives and security".

In a statement (in Russian),, external the ministry says they will leave Ukraine in "the nearest future".

It cited numerous attacks on the Russian embassy in Kyiv and consulates in Odesa, Lviv and Kharkiv since 2014 as the main reason to move the diplomats.

Image source, EPA

UN Secretary General António Guterres has said he is "concerned about the perversion of the concept of peacekeeping" after Moscow ordered Russian troops into rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine for "peacekeeping functions".

"When troops of one country enter the territory of another country without its consent, they are not impartial peacekeepers. They are not peacekeepers at all," Guterres was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

The US earlier dismissed Russia's justification to deploy troops as peacekeepers as "nonsense."

Albiy Shudrya
BBC Ukrainian Service

Around 70km from Donetsk, one of the two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine run by Russian-backed separatists, sits the industrial city of Kostyantynivka. In 2014, it was overrun for two months before the Ukrainian army regained control.

Olga and Jenya got married there earlier on Tuesday and are doing their best to enjoy the occasion with families and friends.

While guests eat from large platters of salad and grilled meat they enjoy the entertainment (a comedian wearing a full bear suit) and pop music blaring from speakers. Wedding guests seem unfazed by the events unfolding on their doorstep.

When they originally set the date, Olga and Jenya weren’t to know it would coincide with President Putin's announcements overnight. But in a side room before they are introduced for the first time as man and wife, they tell me this restaurant had been booked, the photographer hired, and the guests invited. They weren’t prepared to cancel.