Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia takes Kherson government building in siege of Ukraine’s port cities

In one week of war, life within the boundaries of Ukraine has been upended, but the brutal assault Russian President Vladimir Putin launched last Thursday has also reverberated around the globe, steering history in a new direction and switching up 75 years of relations among some of the world’s most powerful and wealthy countries.

In Germany, hundreds of thousands marched in support of the NATO alliance’s firm stance against Russia’s aggression. Berlin decided to send military aid to Ukraine — a dramatic about-face in a country that for more than seven decades has shied away from military involvements as a kind of penance for the Nazi genocide and World War II.

Throughout Europe — even in staunchly neutral Switzerland — countries that depend heavily on Russia to heat people’s homes and power their economies banded together to isolate and punish the Russians for their aggression. Countries that just a few years ago rose up in protest over the arrival of migrants fleeing wars and extremism in the Middle East and North Africa are suddenly welcoming hundreds of thousands of refugees.

In one week, the war in Ukraine has focused the world’s attention away from the coronavirus pandemic, away from inflation and supply chain problems, and away from more chronic problems such as climate change.

Regional wars often have a way of wreaking havoc well beyond the battlefields; Syria’s civil war, for example, similarly sucked in the United States, Western European powers and Russia. But the war in Ukraine has almost instantly restructured global power dynamics, in part because of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling and in part because the world has become so much more interconnected in recent years — in trade, technology, media and politics.

LONDON — A petition for Britain to waive visa requirements for Ukrainian refugees surpassed 100,000 signatures Thursday, meaning that the British Parliament will now consider it for debate.

The petition calls on the United Kingdom’s government to “waive all visa requirements for Ukrainian passport holders arriving in the UK.” It reads: “They are war refugees, our hands are tied to assist with boots on the ground, let us give the people of Ukraine a safe place for their families and children to flee to.”

Any petition on Parliament’s website that receives more than 100,000 signatures is considered for debate.

More than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine in the last week. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that number could reach 4 million if the violence continues.

Unlike its European neighbors, the Britain is not taking refugees who don’t already have family connections in the country. It has loosened its rules since the start of the invasion to allow wider family members of British nationals and Ukrainians living in Britain. This will include parents, grandparents and adult children. On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the exact numbers are “hard to calculate” but that they “could be more than 200,000.”

In Parliament on Wednesday, Johnson was urged by lawmakers to go further. Ian Blackford, the leader of the Scottish National Party in Parliament, said: “This is a moment for Europe to stand united in the face of Putin’s war. The European Union has acted to waive all visa requirements for Ukrainian refugees; the U.K. government stand alone on our continent in so far refusing to do the same.”

Johnson said Britain has a “plan to be as generous as we possibly can to the people of Ukraine.” He added: “What we will not do is simply abandon all checks. We do not think that is sensible, particularly in view of the reasonable security concerns about people coming from that theater of war.”

On the issue of Ukrainian refugees, the British government is out of sync with the public. A recent YouGov poll found that 77 percent of Britons would support the admission of Ukrainian refugees without a visa. Surveys show that British concerns about immigration have shifted notably since the 2016 Brexit vote.

As Western countries respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many of them have sought to hit Moscow where it hurts — the pocketbook — with sanctions against President Vladimir Putin and his allies, as well as restrictions on Russian airlines and banks.

Taking a cue from those efforts, international sporting bodies and retailers have also announced boycotts of Russian goods and benched Russian teams in a symbolic global movement designed to show solidarity with Ukraine.

For a non-exhaustive list of some of the boycotts launched globally since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, click here.

The International Cat Federation says it has banned Russian cats from its international competitions in the latest clampdown on Russia since it invaded Ukraine last week.

The federation, which considers itself “the United Nations of Cat Federations,” said in a statement that it was “shocked and horrified” that Russian forces had invaded Ukraine and “started a war.” Known as FIFe (for its French name, Fédération Internationale Féline), it said that the measures were decided Tuesday and that officials could not “witness these atrocities and do nothing.”

It said the rule would remain in place until the end of May and would then be reviewed.

“No cat belonging to exhibitors living in Russia may be entered at any FIFe show outside Russia, regardless of which organization these exhibitors hold their membership in,” said the organization, which spans almost 40 countries.

When Japan in recent days announced an aggressive set of sanctions to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, it wasn’t just Moscow it wished to signal, according to U.S. and Asian officials.

It was also China.

Japan, not typically a sanctions hawk, wanted to ensure that Beijing drew the right lesson from Russia’s invasion of a weaker neighbor. Moscow would pay a high price.

Some key countries in East Asia are joining with the West to take what is for them the exceptional step of imposing significant financial sanctions, officials and analysts say, brought together by outrage at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concern over China’s growing aggression in the region.

The mayor of Mariupol, a key Ukrainian trading hub, said Thursday that a Russian siege and hours of shelling that battered rail links and bridges have cut off water, power and food supplies to the southern coastal city.

“They impede the supply of food, create a blockade for us,” Vadym Boychenko said in a Telegram post from the city council. He said people could not leave because of the damage to trains and bridges.

Local officials in Mariupol accused Russian forces earlier of hitting an apartment building and a hostel for migrants as a barrage on key cities intensified.

A port city on the Sea of Azov near Russia’s border, Mariupol was still under Ukrainian control but Russian troops have encircled it, the deputy mayor, Sergei Orlov, said in a television interview Thursday. “The situation is quite critical,” he said, adding that it was difficult to estimate how many people have been killed in the shelling and air raids because workers could not collect all the bodies.

The mayor, Boychenko, added Thursday morning that his team was trying to secure a safe corridor to bring in supplies or help evacuate residents. “We again have no light, water and heat,” he said. “We are doing everything to restore the critical infrastructure of the city as soon as possible.”

“We are being destroyed as a nation,” he wrote.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Thursday announced a new round of sanctions in response to the Russian invasion, including freezing assets held by Russian oligarchs.

Japan also will freeze the assets of seven Russian banks and seven top Belarusian officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko and Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin, Kishida said.

In the past week, Japan has taken dramatic steps to ramp up pressure on Russia for its assault on Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Kishida announced that Japan plans to accept refugees fleeing the invasion — an unusual move from a government with strict immigration measures. The government estimates it also would host family members and acquaintances of about 1,900 Ukrainian residents in Japan.

The Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun said at least 70 Japanese men — including 50 former members of the Self-Defense Forces — applied to be volunteer fighters in Ukraine. But it is unclear whether the Japanese Foreign Ministry has asked them not to travel there or how many would be able to go.

The European Union is expecting membership applications from Moldova and Georgia “imminently,” a senior E.U. official said Wednesday.

The news comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made desperate appeals for his country to be admitted under a special procedure because of the Russian invasion.

The requests will renew a fraught debate about E.U. enlargement at a particularly delicate moment, with Russia strenuously opposing Ukraine’s desire to join NATO and citing its alleged “militarization” to justify attacks.

The European Parliament and some members this week expressed support for the idea of admitting Ukraine. But E.U. leaders have been noncommittal, signaling that there are divisions within the bloc.

Georgia’s ruling party on Wednesday made clear its plans to submit paperwork as soon as possible. The decision was based on “the new reality,” Irakli Kobakhidze, chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream, told reporters Wednesday.

Kobakhidze reportedly urged the E.U. “to review our application in an urgent manner and to make the decision to grant Georgia the status of an E.U. membership candidate.”

It remains to be seen if bids from Georgia, or Moldova, another former Soviet Republic, will be given different consideration now tha