Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia expands attacks to Ukraine’s west, as ground forces maneuver near Kyiv

Russia could block Instagram in the country if it confirms a reported change in content-moderation policy by Meta, which owns the social media platform, allowing online calls for violence against the Russian military, a lawmaker said Friday.

“Silence will be viewed as a confirmation in this case,” Alexander Khinshtein, a member of the Russian State Duma, told television channel Russia 24. “If this is so, I believe it would be necessary to use the intervention and response mechanisms available in our state. … The harshest available mechanism is the blocking of an Internet resource in the Russian territory.”

Khinshtein added: “Please note that it has been blocked in our country before, so it could be a matter of blocking Instagram if the information is confirmed or if Meta refuses to respond.” Russia’s Internet censor said it was blocking Facebook earlier this month.

His comments came after reports Thursday that Facebook will allow some calls for violence against Russian invaders as the war in Ukraine rages, creating an unusual exception to its long-standing hate speech rules that prohibit such language.

A spokesman said the company has “temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules, like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’ ” The spokesman added, “We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians.”

Facebook will allow some calls for violence against Russian invaders as the war in Ukraine drags on, creating an unusual exception to its long-standing hate speech rules that prohibit such language.

“As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules, like violent speech such as ‘Death to the Russian invaders.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” spokesman Andy Stone said.

The new policy was first reported by Reuters. The exceptions will also allow users to call for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland, the company said.

Meta, which owns Facebook, and other Silicon Valley companies have faced immense pressure to isolate and crack down on Russia as the war enters its third week. Facebook, TikTok and YouTube banned Russian state media in Europe and in Ukraine in response to government requests, limiting Russia’s ability to spread propaganda and misinformation to millions of people. But the Ukrainian government has pressed the companies to go even further — asking them to fully shut down their services in Russia as punishment for the invasion.

Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov had harsh words Friday for Russians who have criticized their country’s actions in Ukraine.

Speaking in a conference call with reporters, President Vladimir Putin’s chief spokesman said: “A real Russian is not ashamed that he is Russian — and if he is ashamed, then he is not Russian and is not with us.”

Thousands of Russians have been leaving for countries in Europe this week, with many describing themselves as angry or ashamed about the invasion. Others have been concerned by the impact of U.S. and European Union sanctions.

In Washington, some Russians have also joined antiwar protests in front of the Russian Embassy.

Peskov’s approach is consistent with that of other Putin loyalists — including the editor in chief of state-owned broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan, who previously wrote on Twitter: “If you are now ashamed that you are Russian, don’t worry, you’re not Russian.”

However, the war has divided opinion in Russia. While one recent survey suggested that a majority of Russians back the war, rights groups say thousands have also been arrested for attending antiwar protests.

Shortly after the invasion began, Peskov’s daughter posted a black banner on social media with the words, “No to war,” although she swiftly deleted it.

BRUSSELS — The European Union plans to double military aid to Ukraine, the bloc’s top diplomat said Friday, earmarking an additional 500 million euros ($549 million) for arms.

Josep Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister, said Friday that the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, has proposed to double the 500 million euros it has already earmarked, bolstering an unprecedented pledge to finance the supply and delivery of weapons.

“To support Ukraine militarily with 500 millions more and to continue putting pressure on Russia, this is what we are going to do,” he said, arriving Friday at a European Union summit in Versailles, west of Paris. “I am sure the leaders will provide this money. And it is going to be immediately; now it flows quickly.”

However, it remains to be seen whether the move will be approved and whether the money will, in fact, flow quickly. An earlier pledge from Borrell — a surprise plan to send fighter jets to Ukraine — unraveled without much explanation.

Support for Ukraine, as well as broader questions of European security and defense, are at the top of the agenda Friday as Borrell, other E.U. officials and national leaders convene in France.

Lane Perkins arrived at the Ukraine-Poland border last week to a crush of traffic. Cars and buses crammed with refugees rolled west. Ambulances and foreign fighters, like him, ventured east.

To the south, near Ukraine’s border with Romania, Zachary Burgart and Mark Turner wrapped up a six-day mission that began with delivering medical supplies and took an unexpected turn when authorities, suspicious that the two Americans were Russian saboteurs, arrested and interrogated them.

They are among the wave of U.S. military veterans who, despite warnings from the Biden administration, have inserted themselves into a foreign war. Some, like Perkins, want to take on the Russians directly. Others, including Burgart and Turner, have sought less risky ways to get involved, offering military and first-aid training, hauling humanitarian supplies and setting up contacts for future American volunteers to assist Ukrainians.

“This,” said Perkins, a Navy veteran who resides in San Diego, “is a noble cause.”

Russia’s deputy energy minister said Thursday that electricity lines to the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant site have been repaired, but the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said there was no confirmation that power to the closed plant has been restored.

Yevgeny Grabchak was quoted in the ministry’s news service Thursday as saying that Belarus has reestablished electricity lines to the Chernobyl site. However, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said communications were too “shaky” to confirm that.

Earlier, Ukraine’s national electricity grid operator, Ukrenergo, said it had a team ready to restore power at the Chernobyl site, scene of a 1986 disaster, and was waiting for a safe corridor to be created. It also rejected an offer from neighboring Belarus to send specialists to help fix the high-voltage power transmission line.

A Ukrainian official said she hopes a corridor could open Friday to evacuate civilians from the southern port of Mariupol after days of shelling thwarted attempts to move residents out of the besieged city.

“We are waiting and hoping that it works today,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a video, laying out plans for routes from cities such as Volnovakha and Izyum to other parts of the country and from the outskirts of Kyiv toward the capital. She said the cities would also receive aid deliveries.

An official at Ukraine’s presidential office also said a string of evacuation attempts would resume Friday, including from an area near a nuclear power plant in the southeast.

In Mariupol, however, local Ukrainian authorities have sought for days to deliver aid and open a safe passage out, but they say Russian bombardment and a blockade are preventing residents from leaving the city on the Sea of Azov. The Mariupol city council said an airstrike on a maternity hospital this week killed three people, including a child, and injured 17 others.

While bodies piled up in Mariupol during what the mayor described as “two days of hell,” residents of other urban areas have evacuated to different parts of the country through “humanitarian corridors” agreed between Kyiv and Moscow during temporary cease-fires.

More than 80,000 people have evacuated in the past two days, Vereshchuk said earlier, with about 60,000 leaving a northeastern region around the city of Sumy and 20,000 others from areas northwest of Kyiv.

David L. Stern contributed to this report.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved recruiting “volunteers” to reinforce the Russian military’s invasion of Ukraine, and his defense minister said Moscow has received “a colossal number of applications” from across the world to join what it is calling a “Ukrainian liberation movement.”

“If you see that there are people who want to come voluntarily, especially free of charge, and help people living in the Donbas, you need to meet them halfway and help them move to the war zone,” Putin told Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during a televised Russian Security Council meeting Friday. Donbas is a region of eastern Ukraine where Moscow-backed separatists have declared independent “republics” and where Putin has baselessly accused Ukraine of committing genocide against Russian speakers.

Shoigu said the Kremlin has received more than 16,000 applications, of which most came from the Middle East. There have been numerous reports that Russia has been trying to recruit Syrians for its assault on Ukraine, and a senior U.S. defense official said this week that it is “noteworthy that [Putin] believes he needs to rely on foreign fighters.”

During the same meeting, Putin criticized Ukraine for seeking to enlist foreigners in countering Russian aggression. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry created a unit called the International Legion to enlist foreign volunteers to help the Ukrainian army, and it estimated that more than 20,000 volunteers and veterans from 52 countries have expressed a desire to join.

“As for the gathering of mercenaries from all over the world and sending them to Ukraine, we see the Western sponsors of Ukraine and the regime do not hide it. They do it openly, dismissing all norms of international law,” Putin said.

During the meeting, Shoigu also said Russia is ready to hand over seized Ukrainian weapons, including Javelin and Stinger systems, to the separatist armies of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics in Ukraine’s east.

Britain has said the Kremlin, contrary to its denials, has deployed conscript troops to Ukraine. The British Defense Ministry said “experienced mercenaries” from Russian private military companies were also “likely deploying to fight in Ukraine.”

Up to 4,000 Russian troops may have died since Putin launched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, a senior U.S. military officer said Tuesday.