Four rockets hit the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Saturday, local officials said, in the most significant attack on the city since the start of the war with Russia. Governor Maksym Kozytskyy said five people had been woundedafter two rockets hit a fuel depot and two others later hit a military factory. Read our live blog below to see how the day's events unfolded.
9:44 pm: Russian forces are firing at Kharkiv's nuclear research facility
Russian forces are firing at a nuclear research facility in the city of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian parliament said in a Twitter post on Saturday.
"It is currently impossible to estimate the extent of damage due to hostilities that do not stop in the area of the nuclear installation," the post quoted the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate as saying.
The inspectorate's website did not contain any news about the attack.
9:21 pm: Kyiv says US has 'no objections' to Poland supplying war planes
Ukraine said that the US does not object to the transfer of war planes to Kyiv to help it fend off the Russian invasion, after the Pentagon previously rejected a "high risk" offer from Poland.
Officials in Washington "have no objections to the transfer of aircrafts. As far as we can conclude, the ball is now on the Polish side. We will look further into this matter in our conversations with Polish colleagues," Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in written comments.
8:20 pm: Lviv saw 'huge plume of black smoke'
"The residents all around were staring at this huge plume of black smoke rising from the city, coming from the northeastern," FRANCE 24's Catherine Norris-Trent reported from Lviv in the video below.
"There have been several air raid sirens ringing out around the city with announcements telling people to get into bomb shelters, so it's a change here because the strikes this afternoon hit the fuel depot around 5 km from the city centre -- so a pretty significant development in Lviv, which has seen several incidents but on the outskirts and around the wider region."
8:04 pm: Biden not calling for Russia 'regime change', White House says
Joe Biden is not seeking "regime change" in Russia, the White House said, after the US president declared in a major speech that Vladimir Putin "cannot stay in power".
"The president's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region," a White House official said. "He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change."
7:49 pm: Kremlin spokesman dismisses Biden comment on Putin not staying in power
The Kremlin's chief spokesman dismissed Biden's remark that Vladimir Putin "cannot remain in power," saying Russians choose who their leader should be.
Asked about Biden's comment, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters: "That's not for Biden to decide. The president of Russia is elected by Russians." A White House official said Biden, who was speaking in Warsaw, had not been calling for regime change in Russia.
7:35 pm: Watch Biden's speech here:
7:35 pm: Biden's speech was an 'exception to the rule'
"A lot of people say it's difficult to watch Biden speak because he has a lot of passion but he doesn't always communicate it well," said FRANCE 24 International Affairs Commentator Douglas Herbert in the video below. "This speech was an exception to the rule."
7:25 pm: Lviv mayor reports further strike
Lviv, some 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the Polish border, has so far escaped the bombardment and fighting that has devastated some Ukrainian cities closer to Russia since Moscow launched its invasion.
But on Saturday Governor Maksym Kozytskyy said two rockets had struck the city's eastern outskirts in the mid-afternoon and ordered residents to take shelter.
Later, Mayor Andriy Sadoviy said there had been another strike. "One more rocket strike on Lviv," he said in an online post.
6:49 pm: Putin cannot remain in power, Biden says
Russian President Vladimir Putin could not remain in power, and his war against Ukraine has been a strategic failure for Moscow, Biden said on Saturday.
"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," Biden told a crowd in Warsaw. Biden also said the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its second month, had united the West, adding that NATO was a defensive alliance which never sought Russia's demise.
6:42 pm: Ukraine war a 'strategic failure', Biden says
Biden called the conflict in Ukraine a "strategic failure" for Russia but said ordinary Russians were "not our enemy".
"Let there be no doubt that this war has already been a strategic failure for Russia," Biden said in a speech at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
6:35 pm: World must prepare for 'long fight ahead', Biden says
Biden portrayed Ukraine's resistance against Russian forces as part of a "great battle for freedom" and said the world should prepare for a "long fight ahead".
Speaking at Warsaw's Royal Castle in Warsaw, Biden also said Russia "has strangled democracy and sought to do so elsewhere" and told Ukraine: "We stand with you. Period."
6:15 pm: Biden gives speech to 'free world'
Biden is speaking in Warsaw's Historic Castlr Square, recalling the memory of John Paul II, the Polish former pope and an icon of freedom in Eastern Europe due to his opposition to Soviet-backed communism.
5:35 pm: Biden's speech in Warsaw will be 'historic'
Biden's speech will be "historic because he will be giving his definition of the free world", noted FRANCE 24 correspondent Emmanuelle Chaze from Warsaw in the video below.
5:30 pm: Five wounded in strikes on Lviv, governor says
At least five people were wounded Saturday in two strikes on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, the regional governor said, in a rare attack on a city that has escaped serious fighting since Russian troops invaded last month.
"There were two missile strikes within Lviv," the regional governor Maksym Kozytsky said, adding that, "According to preliminary data, five people were injured." Plumes of thick smoke could be seen by AFP journalists in the city centre.
5:30 pm: Thousands of Russians rally against Putin in Prague
Thousands of largely Russian protesters rallied against President Vladimir Putin in central Prague on Saturday, calling on him to stop the war in Ukraine.
Around 5,000 people, according to the organisers, chanted "Russia without Putin", "Freedom for Russia, peace for Ukraine" and "Putin is not Russia" as they marched through Prague's historic centre.
"The Czech Republic is home to 40,000 Russians and up to now these Russians have been unknown to the Czechs," organiser Anton Litvin told AFP.
"We want to show that the Russians who live here are against Putin, against the war, that they support Ukraine," added the artist and activist, who has lived in Prague for ten years.
5:10 pm: Kremlin says Biden's Putin comment limits prospects of mending ties
Joe Biden's latest comment about his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin narrows the prospects for mending ties between the two countries, TASS news agency cited a Kremlin spokesman as saying on Saturday.
Biden referred to Putin as a "butcher" during a visit to NATO ally Poland and said he was not sure Russia was changing its strategy in Ukraine, despite getting bogged down in some areas.
4:35 pm: Biden's focus on 'need for NATO'
Biden's focus in Poland is on the "need for NATO in Europe", FRANCE 24 International Affairs Commentator Douglas Herbert said in the video below. "We're at an inflection point in the world right now. What's happening in Ukraine will really decide the direction in the battle, as Biden sees it, between democracies and autocracies."
4:05 pm: Russian oligarchs welcome in Turkey, foreign minister says
Russian oligarchs are welcome in Turkey but must abide by international law in order to do any business, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.
"If Russian oligarchs ... or any Russian citizens want to visit Turkey of course they can," Cavusoglu said in response to a question at the Doha Forum international conference.
4:04 pm: Three explosions heard near Lviv
Three explosions were heard near Ukraine's western city of Lviv on Saturday, an official from the Lviv city council said.
"There have been three powerful explosions near Lviv...Everyone should keep calm and stay indoors," Igor Zinkevych said in a post on Facebook.
Reuters witnesses saw heavy black smoke rising from the north-east side of the city. The cause could not be immediately verified.
3:50 pm: Biden says he is unsure of Russian strategy change
Biden said he was not sure that Russia had changed its strategy in its invasion of Ukraine, after Moscow said its focus was now to completely "liberate" the breakaway eastern Donbas region.
"I am not sure they have," Biden said when asked by a reporter if Russia had changed its strategy.
3:49 pm: Polish leader says he asked Biden about speeding up military purchases
Polish President Andrzej Duda said that during his meeting with Joe Biden in Warsaw he had asked about the possibility of speeding up military purchases.
Duda said he was referring to purchases of Patriot missile systems, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), F-35 aircraft and Abrams tanks.
3:47 pm: Biden calls Putin 'a butcher' while meeting refugees
Biden called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a "butcher" while meeting Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw.
Asked what he thought of Putin after meeting refugees, Biden said: "He's a butcher."
3:22 pm: South Ossetia sends troops to back Russia
Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia has sent troops to Ukraine to "help protect Russia", its leader said on Saturday, as Moscow's military campaign in the neighbouring country entered its 31st day.
"Our guys are going to fulfil their military duty with a proudly raised banner," the leader of South Ossetia, Anatoly Bibilov, said on Telegram.
3:20 pm: Turkey defuses mine after Russia warns of strays from Ukraine ports
Turkey's military deactivated a mine on Saturday that had drifted in from the Black Sea, setting off a loud explosion north of Istanbul, days after Russia warned several of them had washed away from Ukrainian ports.
Defence Minister Halusi Akar described the object, first discovered by fishermen in the upper Bosphorus strait, as an old type of mine and said he was in touch with both Russian and Ukrainian authorities about it.
3 pm: Biden says NATO Article 5 is 'sacred' for US
The US has a "sacred commitment" to the NATO military alliance's collective defence, Biden told his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda on Saturday during a visit to Warsaw.
"You can count on that... For your freedom and ours," he told Duda, who said that Poles were feeling a "great sense of threat" as a result of the conflict across the border in Ukraine.
2:58 pm: Russia occupies Chernobyl staff town, Kyiv says
Russian forces took control of a town where staff working at the Chernobyl nuclear site live and briefly detained the mayor, sparking protests, Ukrainian officials said Saturday.
"I have been released. Everything is fine, as far as it is possible under occupation," Yuri Fomichev, mayor of Slavutych, told AFP by phone, after officials in the Ukraine capital Kyiv announced earlier he had been detained.
Earlier, Kyiv announced that Russian troops had entered Slavutych and occupied the municipal hospital. Some 25,000 people live in the town 160 kilometres (99 miles) north of the capital, built after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.
2:56 pm: French energy giant Total will not put new capital in Russia
Totalenergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said on Saturday the company would not many any new investments in Russia.
"Clearly, what we said is that we are totally committed to apply all the sanctions," he said. "So the question for us is what do we do with existing assets. And these ones we are not ready to give for zero to Russian people, to Russian oligarchs or to Russia."
2:55 pm: Russia was 'hedging its bets' from the start
"It was undeniable that the Kremlin's main objective was to – as they put it – 'demilitarise' and 'de-Nazify' Ukraine, and that implied a blitzkreig seizure of Kyiv, probably within the space of a week, overthrowing Zelensky and replacing him with a pro-Kremlin puppet," Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at RUSI, told FRANCE 24 in the video below.
However, he continued, Russia was "hedging its bets from the beginning; it's very similar to what they did in Syria" where they were "always very cautious about making blanket statements about Assad recapturing the entire country".
2:35 pm: Poland taking big responsibility, Biden says
Poland is taking a "significant" responsibility in the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, Joe Biden said during a visit to Warsaw on Saturday, adding that the world should help lessen the burden.
Biden also told his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda he views NATO's Article 5 guarantee of mutual defence between member-states as a "sacred" commitment.
2:33 pm: Kyiv mayor cancels Sunday curfew
The mayor of Ukraine's capital Kyiv on Saturday cancelled a curfew he had announced just hours earlier for the next day without providing further explanation.
"New information from the military command: the Kyiv curfew will not enter into force tomorrow," mayor Vitali Klitschko announced on Telegram. The usual overnight curfew from 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) to 07:00 am (0500 GMT) would hold but people would "be able to freely move around Kyiv on Sunday during the day", he added.
2:30 pm: Russia says not planning to call up reserves
Russia said Saturday it did not plan to call up reservists as Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine entered its 31st day, denouncing what it claimed were "false" summons to Russian men by Kyiv's security services.
"The Russian defence ministry is not summoning and does not plan to summon any reservists to the military commissariats," spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement. He added that "many" Russian men had in recent days received "false" phone calls notifying them of their summons to the military commissariats.
2:00 pm: Ukraine's agriculture minister says grain exports far below normal levels
Ukraine's new Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi on Saturday said Ukraine's ability to export grains was getting worse by the day and would only improve if the war with Russia ends.
Speaking in a televised briefing, Solskyi said Ukraine, one of the world's top grain producers, would normally be exporting 4-5 million tonnes of grain per month – a volume that has fallen to just a few hundred-thousand tonnes.
1:51 pm: Refugees from Ukraine swell Warsaw's population by 15 percent
The arrival of refugees from Ukraine has swelled Warsaw's population by 15 percent in one month. FRANCE 24's Emmanuelle Chaze reports from Poland's capital.
1:18 pm: Ukraine's FM says US has pledged more 'defence cooperation'
Ukraine received additional security pledges from the United States on developing defence cooperation, its Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday.
"We did receive additional promises from the United States on how our defence cooperation will evolve," Kuleba told reporters.
12:49 pm: Biden meets top Ukrainian ministers in Warsaw
Joe Biden met in Warsaw with two Ukrainian ministers in the first face-to-face talks between the US president and top Kyiv officials since Russia's invasion began. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov made a rare trip out of Ukraine in a possible sign of growing confidence in the fightback against Russian forces.
Biden could be seen seated at a long white table between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, facing Kuleba and Reznikov. There were Ukrainian and US flags in the background.
12:09 pm: Biden to meet Poland's President Duda, visit refugees from Ukraine in Warsaw
US President Joe Biden will meet with Poland's President Andrzej Duda and refugees from Ukraine during his visit to Warsaw on March 26, 2022. FRANCE 24's Emmanuelle Chaze reports.
11:58 am: Ukraine's defence, foreign ministers meet with US counterparts
Ukraine's Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Saturday that he and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had held a joint meeting with their US counterparts for the first time.
"We discuss current issues & cooperation in political and defense directions between Ukraine and the United States," Reznikov said on Twitter, posting a photograph of the meeting in Warsaw with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.
11:12 am: Kyiv mayor announces curfew to last until Sunday morning
A fresh curfew will be imposed on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv from Saturday evening until Monday Sunday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced.
10:25 am: Russian forces control town where Chernobyl workers live, Ukraine says
Russian forces have taken control of the town of Slavutych, where workers at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant live, the governor of the Kyiv region Oleksandr Pavlyuk said on Saturday.
In an online statement, Pavlyuk said Russian troops had occupied the hospital in Slavutych and kidnapped the mayor.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
9:51 am: Ukraine says more than 130 children have been killed since Russia's invasion began
The war in Ukraine has killed 136 children in the 31 days since the start of the Russian invasion, Ukraine's office of the prosecutor general said on Saturday in a message on the Telegram app.
Of the total, 64 children have been killed in the Kyiv region, the office said. A further 50 children have died in the Donetsk region, it said.
Additionally, 199 children have been wounded, the office said.
9:30 am: Zelensky calls on Qatar, other energy-producing countries to boost natural gas output
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday called on Qatar to increase production of natural gas to counter Russian threats to use energy as a weapon.
"I ask you to increase the output of energy to ensure that everyone in Russia understands that no one can use energy as a weapon to blackmail the world," Zelensky said in a video message to the Doha Forum meeting in Qatar's capital.
Zelensky said countries such as Qatar could make a contribution to the stabilisation of Europe.
8:51 am: Russian forces say they are focusing on Luhansk and Donetsk
Russian forces say they are aiming to take control of the entire Luhansk and Donetsk administrative regions in Ukraine's Donbas. FRANCE 24's Gulliver Cragg reports from Kyiv.
8:15 am: Ukraine's army reports clashes with Russian forces in Donbas
Ukraine’s army said Saturday it had clashed with Russian forces around the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
In a dawn report, the army’s general staff said it had “inflicted significant losses”, claiming to have shot down three planes, destroyed eight tanks and killed dozens of soldiers.
8:04 am: Biden to meet with Poland's Duda, deliver speech on Ukraine war
US President Joe Biden will argue in a speech in Poland on Saturday that the "free world" opposes Russia's invasion of Ukraine and that there is unity among major economies on the need to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House said.
After three days of emergency meetings with allies of the G7, European Council and NATO, and a visit with US troops in Poland, Biden will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
In what US officials were billing as a major address, Biden "will deliver remarks on the united efforts of the free world to support the people of Ukraine, hold Russia accountable for its brutal war, and defend a future that is rooted in democratic principles," the White House said in a statement.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)
