First Thing: Zelenskiy says Russia will see new sanctions as ‘permission to attack’

An elderly woman walks by an apartment building destroyed in the Russian shelling in Borodyanka, Ukraine on Wednesday 6 April. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Hello and good morning,

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said yesterday that new sanctions by the west against Russia did not go far enough and would be seen by invading forces as a “permission to attack”, as fears of an assault on the east of the country intensify.