Thread by @DaveKeating

🇪🇺President @VonDerLeyen and High Rep @JosepBorrellF announce, "for the first time ever, the European Union will finance purchase and deliver military equipment to a country that is under attack."

"This is a watershed moment."

President @VonDerLeyen also announces that *all* EU airspace is being closed to all Russian airlines. Any plane: chartered or commercial.

"Our airspace will be closed to every Russian plane, and that includes the private jets of oligarchs."

Third - the EU is banning Russian state propaganda TV channel #RussiaToday and #Sputnik.

"They will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify #Putin's war and to sew division in our union."

And lastly, the sanctions applied to #Russia will be extended to #Belarus, which is "complicit in the vicious attack against #Ukraine."

"This will also avoid any risk of circumvention of our measures against Russia," President von der Leyen says.

On #refugees, 🇪🇺President @VonDerLeyen says she is proud of the Europeans who have travelled to the border to help the arrivals.

"We welcome with open arms those Ukrainians who have to flee from Putin's bombs"

The EU will send assistance to the Eastern member states to help.

@JosepBorrellF, who will chair a meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers starting now expected to last all night, says "Ukrainian forces are fiercely fighting back and showing a heroic resistance to this invasion"

Ukraine asked for #SWIFT & arms he says, and now 🇪🇺 is doing both

"This afternoon #Putin has announced that he's putting Russian nuclear deterrent forces on high alert," says Borrell.

G7 foreign ministers just had an emergency meeting on this.

"I will today propose to use the European Peace Facility for 2 emergency assistance measures: to finance supply of lethal material to Ukrainian army, and urgently needed fuel, protective equipment and medical supplies."

"Another taboo [that 🇪🇺doesn't supply arms] has fallen"

These 🇪🇺 military taboos are now falling because these are unprecedented times, EU High Rep Borrell says. "It's the first time in history" EU sends arms in conflict.

"We are living through pestilence and war, like in the biblical times."

"Putin doesn't only want to conquer the land, he also wants to capture the spirit of the people with toxic messages and lies"

"The Kremlin and its supporters are engaged in a massive disinformation campaign in Ukraine, in our neighborhood and in the EU itself." So EU will ban RT

"Today we're taking a crucial step to turn off the tap for Russian information manipulation in Europe by banning #RussiaToday and #Sputnik from broadcasting in the EU," says EU High Rep Borrell. "We are killing the snake on its neck"

Will Putin turn off the gas tap in response?

Germany's renouncement of its decades-long policy of not sending arms to conflict zones yesterday enabled this unprecedented announcement of EU arming Ukraine today.

Now ministers have to work through the night to figure out how to do this under EU founding treaty constraints.