Russia-Ukraine live updates: Moscow steps up assault on residential areas as Europe prepares for ‘largest refugee crisis this century’

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple said it is pausing product sales in Russia and has limited other services within the country.

“We are deeply concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and stand with all of the people who are suffering as a result of the violence. We are supporting humanitarian efforts, providing aid for the unfolding refugee crisis, and doing all we can to support our teams in the region,” it said in a statement Tuesday.

The iPhone maker said it has paused all product sales in Russia and last week stopped all exports into its sales channel in the country. Apple Pay and other services have been limited. RT News and Sputnik News are no longer available for download from the App Store outside Russia, it said.

Britain on Tuesday became the latest country to impose sanctions against Belarus for its support of Russia’s invasion, announcing a “first tranche” of penalties against top officials and military groups.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has hosted Russian troops and equipment, drawing condemnations from an international community that has largely coalesced behind Ukraine. This weekend, Belarus also ended its nonnuclear status in a referendum, while Russia put its nuclear forces on alert.

“The Lukashenko regime actively aids and abets Russia’s illegal invasion and will be made to feel the economic consequences for its support for Putin,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement Tuesday.

The United States has also imposed sanctions: The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control last week announced penalties against two dozen Belarusian people and entities over support for the invasion. The European Union and other countries have sought to punish Belarus for more than a year over alleged fraud in its 2020 presidential election and repression of protesters, opponents and journalists.

What role has Belarus played in the Russia-Ukraine crisis?

LVIV, Ukraine — Heavy shelling continued Tuesday in the southeastern city of Mariupol, a key port that has been under near-constant bombardment in recent days, local leaders said.

In a string of Facebook posts, Ukrainian government officials described a perilous scene, reporting destroyed buildings, homes and a school, with at least 20 wounded and a “still unknown” number of people killed.

“This is an inhumane, cruel and incredibly vile act,” said Vadym Boychenko, the mayor of Mariupol, who compared Russian tactics to those of Nazi soldiers. “We will never forget and we will never forgive.”

Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said Russian rockets had hit the city center and appeared to be targeting civilian structures, calling the attacks a war crime. And Mariupol’s city council said Russia had “cynically shelled residential areas.”

Pavlo Kirilenko, head of the Donetsk Regional Administration, said the city was facing “a flurry of Russian rocket artillery.”

“The occupiers strike at all districts of the city,” he wrote. “The shelling doesn’t stop.”

Kirilenko added: “This is another crime of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, against humanity.”

Just as Russia began its invasion, reports were swirling that troops were closing in on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Sirens were blaring. People were attempting to flee. Amid the uncertainty and chaos last Thursday, a young boy in the city sat down at a glossy white piano in a hotel lobby and began to play.

Washington Post video journalist Whitney Leaming, who is in Ukraine, heard the sound from several floors above. She ventured out into the hallway to hear more. She pulled out her video camera, filming as he played against a backdrop of swirly beige carpet below. The melodies reminded her of her mother’s piano playing when she was a baby and could not sleep. Leaming’s video was shared to The Post’s Instagram account, where thousands of people left comments, many calling the footage “heartbreaking.” To date, the footage has been viewed on Instagram almost 9 million times.

Philip Glass and Paul Leonard-Morgan, the composers of the music, could never have imagined that the piece would be the soundtrack to a war. “I never thought of this music as a political piece, but it has become one,” Glass, 85, one of the most renowned of living composers, said in a statement Tuesday. The piece, titled “Walk to School,” was written in 2020 and features on the soundtrack of the science fiction drama television series “Tales from the Loop” on Amazon Prime.

Scottish-born Leonard-Morgan, 48, who now lives in Los Angeles, said the young boy’s piano playing “in the face of adversity” moved him to tears. “I saw the clip and was moved beyond words that someone could find escapism in our music at this horrific time in their life,” he told The Post on Monday.

The company overseeing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany has filed for bankruptcy and laid off employees due to U.S. sanctions, according to two news reports.

The developments are another blow for the pipeline, which is fully constructed but not yet operational. Meant to carry natural gas from Russia to Germany, the pipeline was delayed by the German government after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Nord Stream 2, based in Switzerland, did not immediately respond to a Post request for comment.

“Nord Stream became insolvent because of last week’s U.S. sanctions,” Silvia Thalmann-Gut, economics director in the Swiss canton of Zug, told Swiss broadcaster SRF, adding that the company had filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, Nord Stream 2 told Reuters in an emailed statement that it “had to terminate contracts with employees” after “the recent geopolitical developments leading to the imposition of U.S. sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG.”

Many shelves at the Auchan supermarket in Lviv, Ukraine, stood largely empty on Tuesday.

MOSCOW — Echo of Moscow radio, for decades the voice of Russia’s liberal intelligentsia, went silent Tuesday.

Russian authorities, who have banned media from calling Putin’s “special military operation” against Ukraine a war, an invasion or attacks, blocked two independent news outlets Tuesday that were reporting the reality of the war, Echo of Moscow and Dozhd television.

Russia’s tech and communications regulator Roskomnadzor said the two outlets were blocked at the request of Russia’s prosecutor general for “intentionally and systematically posting information containing false information regarding the essence of a special military operation on the territory of Ukraine.”

It cited their reporting on the methods of conducting hostilities, Russian and civilian casualties, and shelling, as well as their broadcasting of calls for protests.

Echo of Moscow’s editor in chief, Alexei Venediktov, said the station would appeal the ban, although in Russia’s highly politicized court system, the chances of reversing the decision seemed remote. It was not clear when and if they would be able to resume broadcasting.

“The editorial team will challenge this decision in courts. We see a political component in it, as well as the imposition of censorship, which is directly prohibited by the Russian constitution,” he said. The stations were still available on YouTube.

Echo of Moscow, which became well-known in 1991 shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, has long espoused democracy and liberalism in Russia, and played a prominent role in covering Russian wars in the past, including the two Chechen wars Moscow waged to quell a rebellion in Chechnya, which involved massive civilian and military casualties, indiscriminate shelling, and bomb attacks on residential areas. It claims an audience of around 1 million in Moscow and 7 million nationally.

An independent newspaper also threatened by authorities, Novaya Gazeta, began using the Kremlin-approved terminology with an annotation that this was being done because authorities demanded it.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry official Oleg Gavrilov said U.S. tech giants Google and Meta were “openly conducting hostile propaganda,” while restricting access to Russian state media reporting.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Tuesday that human rights violations committed by Russia in Ukraine are growing “by the hour” and questioned whether Moscow should be removed from the United Nations Human Rights Council.

"Russian strikes are hitting schools, hospitals and residential buildings,” Blinken said in a virtual address to the Geneva-based U.N. body. “They are destroying critical infrastructure, which provides millions of people across Ukraine with drinking water, gas to keep them from freezing to death, and electricity. Civilian buses, cars and even ambulances have been shelled. Russia is doing this every day — across Ukraine.”

The address came as Russian President Vladimir Putin pushed forward with his invasion of the former Soviet state despite increasing isolation on the world stage.

Blinken said a resolution would be brought up in the council to set up an international probe into human rights violations, which he called an “important step toward ensuring documentation and accountability.”

Blinken said Russia’s actions caused more than 500,000 Ukrainians to flee their country and questioned Moscow’s membership in the U.N. body.

"One can reasonably ask whether a U.N. member state that tries to take over another U.N. member state — while committing horrific human rights abuses and causing massive humanitarian suffering — should be allowed to remain on this council,” Blinken said.

Earlier in the day, dozens of diplomats from the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union staged a walkout during Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s address to the council.