World News for Students of English

28-02-2022 07:00

On Thursday, Russian forces started an invasion of Ukraine. The Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation; however, world leaders warned him that it could spark the biggest war in Europe since 1945.

A series of air strikes hit airports across the country, and on Friday, the highways leaving the capital city of Kyiv were jammed as people tried to leave. Hundreds of thousand of refugees have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries, around half of which have traveled to the Polish border. On Ukraine-Slovakia border, volunteers are helping arrange food, clothing, transportation and accommodation for new arrivals, with the UN refugee agency warning that as many as 5 million Ukrainians could leave the country.

Meanwhile, the US, Canada and key European countries have agreed to remove selected Russian banks from the Swift international payments system, and the EU has imposed economic sanctions on Russia. In response, Putin has ordered his military to put the country’s nuclear forces on high alert.

Difficult words: invasion (when an army or country enters and takes control of another country by force), sanction (a strong action taken in order to make someone obey a law or rule, or a punishment given when they don’t obey), alert (the state of being watchful and ready).

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