President Biden's State of the Union address

President Biden will announce during the State of the Union tonight that the US will ban Russian aircraft from US airspace, joining a growing number of countries who are closing their skies to Russia following President Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, two sources familiar with the decision tell CNN.

When asked if they were considering this move in recent days, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the number of US flights that fly over Russia to go to Asia and other parts of the world played a role in the decision.

Earlier in the week Germany, Italy, Spain and France announced bans of Russian aircrafts and airlines from their airspace as well. The UK, Poland, Moldova and the Czech Republic all previously closed their airspace to Russian airlines following its attack on Ukraine.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the decision.

Follow our live coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine here.

President Biden tonight will announce new federal efforts to combat identity theft and criminal fraud in pandemic relief programs, according to the White House.

As part of the initiatives, Biden is expected to announce a Department of Justice prosecutor tasked with identifying and prosecuting pandemic fraud via identity theft, targeting criminal syndicates using “state of the art data analytics tools.” 

He’ll also announce increased penalties and more resources to prosecute fraud in programs like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Unemployment Insurance (UI).

Both steps come ahead of an Executive Order in the coming weeks tasking federal agencies to address fraud and theft in their respective purviews.

President Biden will address “his comprehensive strategy to fight crime” during Tuesday’s State of the Union address, a White House official tells CNN, focusing on twin efforts to invest in crime prevention and hire additional police forces at the city and town level.

Biden is also expected to highlight efforts his administration has taken to reduce gun violence following unprecedented rises during the coronavirus pandemic. 

A CNN analysis showed that more than two-thirds of the country's most populous cities recorded more homicides in 2021 than the previous year, with at least 10 setting all-time homicide records — with the majority committed with a firearm. 

The President, the official says, will reiterate his call on Congress to pass “commonsense gun violence legislation that will save lives,’ while urging Congress to pass his budget, including $200 million in funding for community violence intervention and $300 million to double a Department of Justice program aimed at increasing community policing hiring.

Ahead of President Biden's first official State of the Union address, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain joined CNN's Wolf Blitzer to preview the speech.

Biden's handling of Russia's invasion into Ukraine will be among the key topics.

The goal of Biden's assembled coalition, said Klain, is two-fold.

"To provide all kinds of aid. Some of them providing humanitarian aid, others providing military aid to Ukraine," said Klain on the first part of the coalition's efforts.

Secondarily, said Klain, is the way in which the US and its partners have been able to hamstring the Russian economy via sanctions.

"The ruble now, it takes 110 of them to buy one dollar. The Russian stock market's been closed for days," noted Klain.

As for Russian President Vladimir Putin specifically, Klain stopped short of weighing in on Putin's mental state. He did, however, point to the ways in which Putin has gone further than ever before with his recent aggressive acts.

"He has done something now that he has not done to this extent before, which is launch a completely unprovoked, unjustified, invasion of a country as large and as significant as Ukraine," Klain explained, in the process praising the President's ability to assemble the aforementioned coalition and levy the recent sanctions.

"It's hard to pull everyone together ... and I think that's why you're seeing both Democrats and Republicans — including people who have not been big fans of Joe Biden previously — saying that this effort, this global effort, to punish Putin and punish his regime is tighter and stronger than they ever expected," he said.

On the economy, Klain says Biden will point to recent successes, while also recognizing areas that do need improvement.

"He's going to tell the American people tonight that we've made tremendous progress from where we are a year ago. Our economy's grown more this year than any time in 40 years," Klain shared.

However, Klain did reveal that the President "is going to acknowledge that we do have a problem with inflation in this country, and we need to take steps to bring down the prices that Americans play for everyday goods," including gas, as well as prescription drugs.

Finally, while speaking among a crowd that will not be required to wear masks, Klain promised that Biden will address the current state of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Covid cases are down about 90% from where they were a month ago. Deaths are starting to come down, hospitalizations are down, lower than they've been since July. That's because we've gotten 75% of adults fully vaccinated, half of the adults eligible have gotten booster shots," said Klain, adding that under Biden, the US is "taking the next steps to make sure that Covid does not control our lives, and we can get this country closer to being back to normal."

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, lawmakers must follow a list of safety measures ahead of, and during, the address in order to attend.

Unlike the 2021 annual address, there will not be limits on the number of lawmakers allowed in the chamber, but no guest tickets will be issued.

The House gallery will be used for member seating to allow for social distancing.

Here's a look at some of the measures attendees will need to follow:

President Biden gives his first State of the Union address at a time of international upheaval. Polling shows that Americans don't trust Biden when it comes to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It's the latest manifestation of how American satisfaction with Biden and the direction of the country have turned sharply negative since the last time Biden addressed a joint session of Congress last April.

Biden has one of the worst approval ratings going into his first inaugural address of any president in the polling era. And his decline seems to come from younger Americans and non-Democrats who once supported the Democratic president.

Biden's current approval rating comes in at around 41%. His disapproval rating registers at 53% or 54%, depending on how you average the polls. That's bad enough for a -12 or -13 point net approval rating.

When Biden spoke in front of Congress last April, his net approval rating was on the other side of the ledger. His net approval rating stood at +12 points.

The change in Biden's has occurred largely because voters lack trust in him on the coronavirus pandemic and the economy. Biden's net approval rating on the coronavirus stood at around +30 points 10 months ago. Today, it's about -3 points.

Biden's approval rating on the economy has likewise tanked. He had about a +12 point net approval rating at the end of April last year. Right now, Biden's at around -20 points on the economy.

Biden's -20 point net approval rating on the economy is the worst for any president since at least 1978 at the time of their first State of the Union.

Whenever you lose about 30 to 35 points of net approval ratings on the two biggest issues during the early part of your presidency, your overall popularity is bound to greatly suffer.

Biden's low popularity going into his first State of the Union is unusual. The average net approval for elected presidents at their first state of the union has been +33 points in the polling era.

That said, the two worst before Biden belonged to the last two presidents: Barack Obama in 2010 and Donald Trump in 2018. Obama came in with a net approval rating of +3 points, while Trump's was even lower than Biden's at -17 points.

In this era of high polarization, it was likely going to be difficult for Biden to be as popular as presidents of yesteryear.

Biden, though, has lost a lot of support since the election. He won the national popular vote against Trump by 4.5 points in 2020.

A lot of that previous support has ebbed from non-Democrats. Our latest full CNN/SSRS poll asked respondents whether they approved or disapproved of Biden's job performance and who they voted for in the 2020 election.

Pure independents and voters who lean or identify as Republicans make up 45% of those who voted for Biden but don't currently approve of the job he is doing. They're just 10% of those who approve of Biden and voted for him in 2020.

Read more about the President's approval rating here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged US counterpart Joe Biden to deliver a strong and "useful" message about the Russian invasion at his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, in an exclusive interview with CNN and Reuters from the bunker in Kyiv in which he is leading his military's response.

In the rare interview on Tuesday afternoon, Zelensky said that as long as Moscow's attacks on Ukrainian cities continued, little progress could be made in talks between the two nations.

"You have to speak first of all. Everybody has to stop fighting and to go [back] to that point from where it began five, six days ago," Zelensky said. "It's important to stop bombing people and then we can move on and sit at the negotiation table," he said.

Asked if he felt Ukraine was wasting its time by talking with Russia, he said: "We'll see." Officials from the two countries met for the first time on Monday since Russia's invasion began last week.

Ahead of Biden's speech in Congress on Tuesday, Zelensky urged the President to impress upon Americans the urgency and implications of Russia's invasion.

Zelensky reiterated calls for the US and NATO to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine or put boots on the ground. "I've already addressed and (spoken) to some Western leaders with this request, because I do believe that leaders do have to support democratic countries and they have to help them."

"When we talk about no-fly (zones), we're looking back into history ... and that doesn't mean that we need to draw another country into the war. And, frankly, you know, everyone is drawn into the war now."

"I've spoken to Biden many times," Zelensky said. "And I've told them many times that Ukraine will resist and fight stronger than anyone else but on our own against Russia we won't manage it."

"That's why if somebody wants to help us, everybody has to act swiftly," Zelensky added. "This is the moment."

The US and NATO allies have aided Ukraine by sharing arms, military equipment and intelligence, while also imposing dramatic sanctions on Russia. But the alliance has thus far made clear it has no plans to send soldiers into Ukraine, which is not a NATO member.

Zelensky also predicted troubles in NATO member states if Russia seizes control of his country. "If Ukraine fails, then all these troops will be at your borders, Poland, Lithuania ... and you'll be facing greater issues. There'll be other provocations there," he said.

Read more from Zelensky here.

President Biden will address the evolution of the pandemic and the US' response to it during his State of the Union Address, amid the White House's work to develop a strategy for the next phase of the pandemic.

But Biden will now do so ahead of the release of the new strategy document that White House officials have been working on for weeks.

The document was expected to be rolled out in time for the State of the Union — as long as the Covid risk continued to decline and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its updated guidance first — but was delayed amid the rapidly unfolding situation in Ukraine, which has dominated Biden's attention, one senior administration official said.

A White House official said Biden will highlight the "tremendous progress" the US has made in the fight against Covid, putting the country "in a position to move forward safely."

Led by Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients, White House officials have spent weeks putting together a new document outlining the administration's strategy to tackle the next phase of the coronavirus pandemic, officials said.

"How do we best optimize our current response and how do we prepare for the future," one senior administration official said in describing the document, calling it a "40,000-foot strategy."

Zients and others on the Covid-19 response team have spoken with a slew of outside experts as they craft the new strategy, which is expected to address how the nation can mitigate coronavirus effects while also reestablishing a sense of normalcy in the country, relying on the widespread availability of vaccines and new treatments.

White House officials have probed outside experts on a wide range of topics, from the future of masks and vaccine requirements to efforts to distribute the vaccine globally to protecting immunocompromised individuals in a world in which most coronavirus restrictions are dismantled. The strategy will also address how the administration will respond to the nearly inevitable emergence of new variants.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to watch President Biden’s State of the Union address, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told CNN late Tuesday evening.

Biden is scheduled to deliver his first State of the Union address at the Capitol on Tuesday evening. He is expected to focus heavily on the conflict in Ukraine.

Follow our live coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine here.