US closes its airspace for Russian flights

The US authorities are closing the country’s airspace for Russian aircraft, US President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address to the US Congress, Russian news agency TAAS reports.

"Today I’m announcing that we are joining our allies and closing off the American airspace to all Russian flights," he said.

According to the US Department of Transportation, the ban will be applicable to all aircraft owned, certified, operated, registered, chartered, leased, or controlled by, for, or for the benefit of, a person who is a citizen of Russia

Already shunned by the West over its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has shown no sign of stopping an assault that has included strikes on Kyiv and rocket attacks in the second city of Kharkiv. Dozens have been killed.

Russia has failed to capture a single city since its full-scale invasion began nearly a week ago, and Western analysts say Moscow has fallen back on tactics which call for devastating shelling of built-up areas before entering them.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have fled the fighting as a miles-long Russian military convoy north of Kyiv advances toward the city. West of Kyiv, in the city of Zhytomyr, four people, including a child, were killed on Tuesday by a Russian cruise missile, a Ukrainian official said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Russia to stop bombarding civilians and resume talks.

"It's necessary to at least stop bombing people, just stop the bombing and then sit down at the negotiating table," he told Reuters and CNN in a joint interview in a heavily guarded government compound in Kyiv.

Zelenskiy later thanked Western leaders for their support. "Today, more than ever, it is important for us to feel that we are not alone," he wrote on Twitter.