Belarus preparing to join Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. official says

At the most-trafficked border post between Ukraine and Poland on Sunday, the line of cars was backed up for more than 20 miles over gray and frozen country roads, almost halfway to Lviv, the biggest city in western Ukraine. Drivers swapped shifts between naps to lurch forward sporadically.

Many had driven furtively for days after fleeing shelling elsewhere, just to arrive in a place where they feel trapped. Many had abandoned their vehicles and pushed forward on foot.

“I can’t feel my feet anymore. I think they are frozen,” said Olga Balaban, 26, who came on her own after making a wrenching decision to leave behind her parents, who refused to leave.

CHICAGO — Alexander Spektor didn’t immediately recognize the number on the video call that came through on his phone Thursday.

For the past week, Spektor, 46, and his partner, Irma Nuñez, 48, have been glued to their devices, waking at 5 a.m. each day to immerse themselves in the latest news from Ukraine and digest the stream of messages flooding their phones from 5,000 miles away.

In Kyiv, their surrogate was carrying twins for the couple, and she and the babies had endured weeks of terrifying health complications. There were seven more weeks until the due date, and Russian forces were bearing down on Ukraine’s capital city.

LONDON — Hundreds of Londoners came together Sunday to help fleeing Ukrainians by donating supplies that were being loaded into vans destined for the Poland-Ukraine border.

People turned up at a Polish community center in South London with diapers, bedding, blankets, clothes, toys, tea, food, flashlights and first aid kits. Someone donated child car seats. Another a bassinet. Another brought a doll dressed in pink clothes. The community center quickly became so full that new arrivals were told to drop off donations in an outdoor parking lot.

People around the world continued to show their solidarity with Ukraine over the weekend, showing up by the thousands to protest the Russian invasion.

More than 100,000 turned out in Berlin on Sunday, a sea of people waving Ukrainian flags and denouncing Putin. Elsewhere in Europe, 80,000 protesters crowded into Prague’s central square, waving signs that read “Hands off Ukraine,” a poignant display in a country whose buildings still bear bullet holes from a Soviet invasion in 1968.

"We cannot appease tanks coming to some country, crushing the desire for freedom and democracy,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala told the crowd.

The United States announced $54 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine on Sunday as a host of other countries vowed similar help.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the U.S. is one of Ukraine’s biggest humanitarian donors and that this new commitment would help provide food, water, health care and other vital needs.

“As with any refugee situation, we call on the international community to respond to the needs of those seeking protection in a way consistent with the principle of non-refoulement and our shared obligations under international law,” Blinken said. Non-refoulement is the international principle against sending asylum seekers back to a country where they face persecution.

LONDON — Oleg Paska says his mother may be an “old woman,” but she is not scared.

Paska, 56, recently moved to the United Kingdom after years traveling for work. He was born and raised in Ukraine, where many members of his family live, including his “brave” 84-year-old mother in the western city of Khmelnitsky.

“She has survived a lot,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post after Russia launched its assault on Ukraine on Thursday, forcing families to flee and prompting Western officials to condemn President Vladimir Putin for “bringing war back to Europe.”

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Sunday advised Americans to leave Russia “immediately,” citing the potential for U.S. citizens to be stuck there as more airlines cancel flights into and out of the country.

“An increasing number of airlines are canceling flights into and out of Russia, and numerous countries have closed their airspace to Russian airlines,” the embassy advised in a security bulletin. “U.S. citizens should consider departing Russia immediately via commercial options still available.”

On Friday, the State Department urged Americans to “avoid the areas of Russia along its border with Ukraine.”

Ukraine has asked the United Nations’ judicial body to reject Russia’s claims of “genocide” as a rationale for invasion and order the country to halt and make reparations for its attack.

Ukraine filed its request with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) this weekend, saying Russia has turned a decades-old treaty against genocide “on its head — making a false claim of genocide as a basis for actions on its part that constitute grave violations of the human rights of millions of people across Ukraine.”