Posted by 
The United States has approved a flight chartered by the Russian government to fly out Russian diplomats at the United Nations who were expelled for abuse of their privileges of residence, a State Department spokesperson said on Saturday.
“This special exception was done in accordance with federal regulations to ensure Russian mission personnel and their families departed by the date we had instructed,” the spokesperson said.
Earlier on Saturday, President Vladimir Putin said that Western sanctions on Russia were akin to a declaration of war and warned that any attempt to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine would be tantamount to entering the conflict.
Putin reiterated that his aims in Ukraine are to defend Russian speaking communities through the “demilitarization and de-Nazification” of the country so that it became neutral.
Ukraine and Western countries have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for the invasion he launched on February 24 and have imposed a sweeping range of sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow.
Source: Alarabiya
