WORLD

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy, along with his family, has decided to stay back in the capital city of Kyiv.

Zelenskyy had in a video statement on Friday said that Russia has marked him as "target number one" and his family as "target number two".

"They [Russia] want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state. I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine," he had told Ukrainians.

The President of Ukraine is being praised for displaying courage and standing by his fellow Ukrainians in the face of the Russian invasion. But he is not the only popular leader trying to comfort the people of Ukraine in this time of crisis.

The European Union's chief executive says the 27-nation bloc will close its airspace to Russian airlines, fund supplies of weapons to Ukraine and ban some pro-Kremlin media outlets in response to Russia's invasion.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday that "for the first time ever, the European Union will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and other equipment to a country that is under attack."

Von der Leyen added that "we are shutting down the EU airspace for Russians. We are proposing a prohibition on all Russian-owned, Russian registered or Russian-controlled aircraft. These aircraft will no more be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the EU."

Twitter Inc. said it suspended all advertising in Russia and Ukraine, seeking to ensure that promotional posts don’t detract from public safety information sent via the social network.

The San Francisco-based company won’t show advertising in those markets, and also will curb tweet recommendations that appear in users’ timelines from accounts that they don’t already follow in an effort to limit the spread of misleading and abusive content.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine early on Thursday, attacking from the north, east and south of the country. Russian troops are shelling Ukrainian cities, aiming to seize the capital, Kyiv. 

In its first reaction after the Russian multi-pronged invasion of Ukraine, China has refused to extend direct political support to Russia. Instead, the Chinese foreign ministry expressed the hope that the Ukrainian crisis would be resolved through diplomatic dialogue.

“I would like to say that China is closely following the situation in Ukraine,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Thursday, adding, “We call on all parties to exercise restraint and prevent the situation from getting out of control”. China is Russia’s only major friend and the only permanent member of the UN Security Council which has not criticised Moscow over the Ukrainian issue. This is why Beijing’s refusal to publicly come out in Moscow’s favour over Ukraine, and thus be bracketed with Russia at a time when it is facing isolation by the West, is extremely significant.

India and Israel have discussed avenues to expand space cooperation as Israel’s ambassador Naor Gilon called on Isro chairman S Somanath at the space agency headquarters in Bengaluru on Tuesday to discuss ways to boost space relations.

“The ongoing interactions between the space agencies and the avenues for expanding space relations between India and Israel, in view of space reforms announced by the government of India were discussed during the meeting,” an Isro statement said.

Last year, Isro and Israel Space Agency reviewed the progress of the ongoing activities, including cooperation in electric propulsion system (EPS) for small satellites and GEO-LEO (Geosynchronous Earth Orbit-Low Earth Orbit) optical link. The two agencies had also discussed potential opportunities of working together in future, including the launch of Israeli satellites in Indian launchers and commemorating the 75th anniversary of Indian independence and 30 years of India-Israel diplomatic relations through an event this year.