Russian forces pounded cities to the east amid horrific claims of war crimes including shooting and blowing up more innocent civilians.
As Moscow’s troops continued their armoured advance on Kyiv artillery strikes pounded Chernihiv northeast of the capital, killing nine civilians.
Ukraine ’s human rights monitor said Russia used phosphorous bombs in an overnight attack on the town of Popasna in the eastern Luhansk region, calling it a “war crime.”
Oleksi Biloshytsky, chief of Popasna police, whose town is 60 miles west of Luhansky city, said over the weekend Russian forces used the weapon in his area.
Using an amalgamation of the words ‘Russian forces’ and ‘fascist’ he said: “It’s what the Nazi called a “flaming onion” and that’s what the Russcists are dropping on our towns.
“Indescribable suffering and fires.”
Further south Russian missiles struck the Sviatoguirsk monastery where nearly 1,000 civilians were sheltering, wounding 30 people, according to Ukraine’s public prosecutor.
Over the weekend Ukraine’s intelligence agency accused Russian troops of another atrocity against civilians fleeing through an agreed “safety route.”
Ukraine intelligence officials claimed Russian troops had shot at women and children during an agreed evacuation, killing seven, including a child.
Kyiv’s Central Intelligence Agency said it happened on Friday as women and children fled the village of Peremoga in the Baryshevsky district towards the village of Ostroluchie.
They were walking along a “green” corridor agreed with the Russian Federation, according to the intelligence report and the exact number of wounded is unknown.
The survivors were ordered to return to where they had come from and the atrocity did not emerge until late Saturday night.
On the same day, it has emerged a woman and a child were shot at a checkpoint in the Kharkiv region and yesterday another child was killed in an attack on a car in the same region.
In eastern Ukraine, Russian troops were trying to surround Ukrainian forces, advancing from the besieged port of Mariupol in the south and the second city Kharkiv in the north.
Kharkiv has suffered some of the heaviest bombardments but Ukraine’s forces have fought back repeatedly.
British intelligence said Russian forces advancing from Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, were trying to circle around Mykolayiv to drive west towards Odesa.
Airstrikes on Mykolayiv killed nine people on Sunday, regional Governor Vitaliy Kim said.
In Chernihiv, around 100 miles northeast of Kyiv, firefighters rescued residents from a burning building after heavy shelling.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday nearly 125,000 people had been evacuated via “humanitarian corridors” agreed with Russia.
Russian troops have destroyed 3,687 Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities so far, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
But latest Ukrainian official figures said Russia has suffered horrific losses in the invasion, now in its third week.
They have lost well over 12,000 troops, 74 warplanes, 86 helicopters, a staggering 374 tanks, 1226 armoured personnel vehicles, 600 other vehicles and three boats.
In stricken Mariupol, which has endured some of the worst punishment since Russia invaded, efforts to bring food, water and medicine into the port city of 430,000 and to evacuate civilians, were prevented by unceasing attacks.
Local officials confirmed 2,187 people have died in the city during the siege, according to the mayor’s office, and the shelling has even interrupted efforts to bury the dead in mass graves.
Mr Zelensky said: "They are bombing it 24 hours a day, launching missiles. It is hatred. They kill children."
Over the weekend he reported that 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers have died in fighting since the February 24 start of the Russian invasion.
Thousands of civilians have been killed including more than 80 children who have died. More than 100 children are thought to have been injured, according to Ukraine’s chief prosecutor.
Mr Zelensky also accused Russia of employing “a new stage of terror” with the alleged kidnapping of the mayor of Melitopol, a city 119 miles west of Mariupol.
After residents of the occupied city demonstrated for the mayor’s release on Saturday, the Ukrainian leader called on Russian forces to heed the calls.
“Please hear in Moscow!” Mr Zelensky said. “Another protest against Russian troops, against attempts to bring the city to its knees.”
In multiple areas around the capital, artillery barrages sent residents scurrying for shelter as air raid sirens wailed.
A convoy of supplies has been spotted travelling into Mariupol protected by a group of Orthodox priests, who bravely used their religious appearance in the hope that Russian soldiers would be less likely to fire on them.
The Orthodox clergy members are said to have volunteered to accompany the convoy, which carried 90 tonnes of food and medicine, from nearby Zaporizhzhia and planned to safely evacuate civilians on their return
Britain’s Defence Ministry said Russian ground forces that had been massed north of Kyiv for most of the war had edged to within 15 miles of the city centre.
As artillery pounded Kyiv’s north-western outskirts, black and white columns of smoke rose southwest of the capital after a strike on an ammunition depot caused explosions.
Most of the victims were in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Sumy, Kherson and Zhytomyr regions.
