February 26, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The mayor of Kyiv has extended a citywide curfew until Monday morning as Russian troops advance on the capital. 

The curfew will run from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. local time nightly "for more effective defense of the capital and the security of its inhabitants."

Mayor Vitali Klitschko had initially set the curfew to run until Sunday morning, "for more effective defense of the capital and the security of its inhabitants." 

In the latest order, citizens are prohibited from all movement of vehicles except for those with special passes. 

Estonia, Romania, Lithuania and Latvia will ban Russian airlines from their airspace, the countries announced Saturday.

“We invite all EU countries to do the same. There is no place for planes of the aggressor state in democratic skies. #StandWithUkraine," Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas tweeted Saturday.

Latvia made the decision to close its airspace such a decision in coordination with its neighbors Lithuania and Estonia, the government said Saturday in a statement.

"Lithuania is joining Latvia and Estonia in banning Russian aircraft from its airspace", Lithuanian Transport Minister Marius Skuodis said Saturday.

The UK, Poland, Moldova and the Czech Republic all previously closed their airspace to Russian airlines following its attack on Ukraine.

You can read more about how Russia's invasion of Ukraine is impacting travel here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has more than 50% "of his total assembled power now committed inside Ukraine,” a senior US defense official told reporters Saturday.

 The official said the 50% consists of “largely combat power.”

Some Russian government websites continued to be down on Saturday, as the country's invasion of Ukraine is in its third day. 

The websites that are dark notably include the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defence. 

The exact reasons for the outages are not immediately clear, but the international hacking group Anonymous has claimed that it is attacking the sites. 

On Friday, the same Russian websites appeared offline for a while, but the Kremlin denied it was being attacked by Anonymous, according to state media. It’s the third day in a row Russian websites have been inaccessible, at least for some period of time.

Anonymous said it is also working "to keep the Ukrainian people online as best we can."

The United Kingdom has canceled the visas of a Belarusian basketball team due to Minsk’s backing of Moscow in invading Ukraine.

The team was scheduled to play in Newcastle in northern England on Sunday. 

“The UK will not welcome the national sports teams of those countries who are complicit in Putin’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of #Ukraine,” British Home Secretary Priti Patel tweeted Saturday.

More on this: A number of sporting groups have spoken out over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Poland has refused to play in next month’s 2022 World Cup qualifier against Russia over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the President of the Polish Football Association Cezary Kulesza said on Saturday. The football associations of Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic also issued a joint statement Thursday calling for the World Cup qualifiers not to be played in Russia.

Following his semifinal win at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Friday, Russian professional tennis player Andrey Rublev wrote "no war please" on a camera lens.

The NBA's lone Ukrainian players, Alex Len and Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, issued a joint statement condemning the war on Thursday as well.

CNN's Jacob Lev, David Close and Aleks Klosok contributed reporting to this post.

Royal Navy ships, British Army troops and Royal Air Force fighters have been deployed in eastern Europe to bolster NATO’s eastern front, according to a statement from the UK’s Ministry of Defence on Saturday.

“HMS Trent is in the eastern Mediterranean, conducting NATO exercises with Merlin Helicopters and RAF P8 Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft,” the statement said. HMS Diamond, a destroyer, will join from Portsmouth.

Tanks and armored vehicles “have arrived in Estonia from Germany, with further equipment and around 1000 troops arriving over the coming days,” the ministry added.

The statement added that Typhoon fighter jets “flying from bases in Cyprus and the UK are now patrolling NATO airspace over Romania and Poland alongside NATO allies with Voyager air-to-air refueling aircraft in support.” 

“Alongside our NATO Allies, these deployments constitute a credible deterrent to stop Russian aggression threatening the territorial sovereignty of member states,” Wallace added.

A official from US President Joe Biden's administration says the newly authorized military assistance of up to $350 million from US Department of Defense supplies will include “anti-armor and anti-aircraft systems, small arms and various caliber munitions, body armor, and related equipment in support of Ukraine’s front-line defenders facing down Russia’s unprovoked attack.”

“The United States and its Allies and partners are standing together to expedite security assistance to Ukraine,” the official said. “We are employing all available security cooperation tools in support of the Ukrainian people in their hour of need as they defend themselves against Russian aggression.”

More background: As CNN has reported, President Biden instructed Secretary of State Antony Blinken to release up to $350 million in immediate support to Ukraine's defense, according to a memo released by the White House Friday. 

This is the third drawdown of money. Previous drawdowns have been for $60 million and $250 million, putting the total over the last year at more than a billion dollars, according to an administration official. 

In the years leading up to Russia's attack on Ukraine, US lobbyists have raked in millions of dollars from Russian banks and financial firms paying to push their interests in Washington.

Now, in the wake of the Russian invasion and new sanctions announced by President Joe Biden, many of those lobbying firms are rushing to cut ties and drop their lucrative contracts.

At least six lobbying firms that previously represented now-sanctioned Russian banks and companies tied to a Russian natural gas pipeline terminated their contracts or representation this week, according to statements and federal lobbying disclosures.

The exodus marks the rupture of a Moscow-to-K-Street conduit that has long employed former federal officials and members of Congress of both parties, experts said.

Some of the banks Biden targeted with sanctions, including VTB, Russia's second-largest, were put under "full blocking" sanctions, which freeze organizations' US assets and prohibit them from doing business in the country. That means it would be illegal for lobbyists to work for them unless they receive a license from the Treasury Department, according to legal experts.

Dropping contracts with fully blocked banks "is not a gesture in solidarity with Ukraine, this is a requirement under US law," said Erich Ferrari, an attorney who specializes in US economic sanctions. Lobbyists could face prosecution for running afoul of sanctions laws, he said.

But even for lobbyists representing firms that aren't fully blocked, it would be a "real reputational risk for these firms to keep representing these sanctioned entities," said Freeman, who called ties to Russia a "scarlet letter" in DC.

Read the full story here.

As Russia's assault on Ukraine continues, a number of the world's most iconic landmarks were lit up in blue and yellow — the colors of the Ukrainian flag — to show support for the country.

Here's a look at some of them:

The Empire State Building in New York City

The London Eye

The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin

The Eiffel Tower in Paris