World

Russian police on Thursday clashed with people protesting President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.

According to Telegraph correspondent Nataliya Vasilyeva, parts of Moscow faced lockdowns ahead of the anti-war protests. She said that Moscow police were here seen detaining protesters who chanted "no to war."

Washington Post writer Aaron Blake detailed the growing list of former President Donald Trump's "botched" comments on the invasion of Ukraine.

According to Ukraine/Russian history professor at the University of Chicago, Vladimir Putin's invasion of the country is similar to Nazi aggression. "This is akin to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. That’s it," said Faith Hillis on Twitter.

Russian and Ukrainian forces were on Thursday battling for an airbase on the northern outskirts of Kyiv after dozens of attack helicopters swooped south from Belarus towards the capital.

Russian airborne troops seized control of the Gostomel airfield, but Ukraine's leader President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed that they would be encircled and crushed.

On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported that the Kremlin is facing some internal anger as Russian citizens and activists rise up to protest the invasion of Ukraine — and is responding with fierce crackdowns to arrest and intimidate dissidents.

"Protesters who staged demonstrations against the war in cities including Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg, and Moscow were quickly detained," reported Allison Quinn. "Marina Litvinovich, a well-known human rights activist, posted a video on social media calling for Russians to take to the streets and protest the assault on Ukraine — but she was arrested outside her home in Moscow a short time later, according to multiple local reports. Apparently fearing further demonstrations, numerous Russian law enforcement agencies, including the powerful Investigative Committee and the Interior Ministry, discouraged citizens from taking part in 'unsanctioned' protests."

A Pakistan court sentenced the scion of a wealthy industrialist family to death Thursday, for raping and beheading his girlfriend in a murder that sparked an outcry over the brutalizing of women in the deeply patriarchal nation.

Pakistani-American Zahir Jaffer, 30, attacked Noor Mukadam at his Islamabad home in July last year after she refused his marriage proposal -- torturing her with a knuckleduster and using a "sharp-edged weapon" to behead her.

CORRECTON: A previous version of this story included a report tweeted by NBC'sRichard Engel that the Chernobyl nuclear waste facility had been "destroyed." Engel has since deleted that tweet and we have revised our story. Raw Story regrets the error.

At roughly 10pm ET this Wednesday, Russian military forces began their invasion of Ukraine. Explosions were heard in major cities such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa.

On Thursday, The Daily Beast flagged that Novaya Gazeta, one of the few independent newspapers in Russia, has shared evidence that Vladimir Putin's announcement declaring war on Ukraine was filmed three days before the announcement was actually aired — yet more evidence that the conflict and the justifications for it were carefully scripted and planned by the Kremlin.

"The newspaper, whose editor-in-chief shared last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, published on its Twitter feed what it said was metadata from the Kremlin website showing that the video was recorded on Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. Moscow time," reported Philippe Naughton. "Separately, the Russian-based Conflict Intelligence Team pointed out that Putin was wearing the exact same suit and tie in Thursday’s broadcast as he wore when he announced that Russia was to recognize two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine — the prelude to all-out war."

As Ukrainian cities come under air attack from Russian forces, the country has also suffered the latest blows in an ongoing campaign of cyber attacks. Several of Ukraine’s bank and government department websites crashed on Wednesday, the BBC reports.

The incident follows a similar attack just over a week ago, in which some 70 Ukrainian government websites crashed. Ukraine and the United States squarely blamed Russia.

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is courting far-right extremists as he seeks to become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives following the 2022 midterm elections, according to a new report from the New York Times.

"Even as he courts the mainstream elements of his party, he has defended Republicans who have called the Jan. 6 riot a righteous cause. And he sided against a member of his own conference in throwing his support behind the Wyoming primary challenger, Harriet Hageman, whose central message is that Ms. Cheney should be ousted for breaking with Mr. Trump and daring to investigate the most brutal attack on the Capitol in centuries," Annie Karni and Jonathan Weisman reported.

Before Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, it “recognized” two parts of eastern Ukraine as sovereign states: the so-called people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. That recognition is now central to what both Russia and the West are saying about the invasion.

Why does this kind of state recognition matter so much, and how does it challenge international law?

The full-fledged Russia invasion of Ukraine may have global implications in the natural gas and oil markets, CNBC reported Thursday.

"Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said via Twitter on Thursday that Putin had 'launched a full-scale invasion,' of the country, which he described as 'a war of aggression.' Kuleba called on world leaders to stop the Russian president," CNBC reported. "European gas prices jumped on news of the invasion, while international benchmark Brent crude futures surpassed $100 a barrel for the first time since 2014."