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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Samantha Lock (now); Maanvi Singh, Lauren Aratani ,Léonie Chao-Fong and Martin Belam (earlier)

Civilians flee eastern Ukraine in advance of a widely forecast attack – as it happened

Ukraine Russia Mariupol Vladimir Putin United Kingdom Alexander Lukashenko Volodymyr Zelenksyy John Kirby Karl Nehammer Pentagon
A Russian soldier patrols at the Mariupol drama theatre hit by an airstrike in March.
A Russian soldier patrols at the Mariupol drama theatre hit by an airstrike in March. Photograph: Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images

We are closing this liveblog but please follow all the latest developments in Ukraine on our new blog below.

Updated

Summary

Here is a comprehensive re-cap of where things stand:

  • US president Joe Biden has labelled Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “genocide”, saying Russian president Vladimir Putin “is trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian”. “We’ll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies, but it sure seems that way to me,” he added. Zelenskiy promptly responded: “True words of a true leader. Calling things by their names is essential to stand up to evil.”
  • Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine, Viktor Medvedchuk, has been captured by Ukrainian law enforcement. Medvedchuk is the leader of the Opposition Platform for Life, Ukraine’s biggest opposition party. Zelenskiy proposed releasing him to Russia in exchange for Ukrainians captured by Russian forces. Zelenskiy also warned Russia: “Let Medvedchuk be an example for you. Even the former oligarch did not escape, not to mention much more ordinary criminals from the Russian boondocks. We will get everyone.”
  • Zelenskiy said it is “not yet possible” to draw 100% conclusions about what kind of substance was used in Mariupol during his national address late on Tuesday. Earlier, he voiced concerns that Russian forces were preparing “a new stage of terror” that could involve the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine. Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the Azov volunteer regiment, claimed on Monday that three people in the southern port city had experienced “poisoning by warfare chemicals, but without catastrophic consequences”.
  • The world’s chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said it is “concerned” over reports of the use of chemical weapons in Mariupol.
  • Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said it has received $4m worth of equipment to digitise Russia’s war crimes. “Two private companies, AXON and Benish GPS, have donated $4 million worth of special equipment (chest video recorders) to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine,” the agency said in an update over the Telegram messaging app.
  • The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko, said the latest estimate was that around 21,000 civilian residents had been killed in the city since the start of the Russian invasion. The number of deaths in Mariupol could be as high as 22,000, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, told CNN.
  • Putin also claimed Russia’s military operation was going as planned, and that Russia’s aim in Ukraine was to meet all its goals and minimise losses. “We will achieve our objectives, there are no doubts,” Putin told workers at the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s far east. “Its goals are absolutely clear and noble,” he said of Russia’s military campaign. He said Russia “had no other choice” but to launch what he calls a “special military operation”, and vowed it would “continue until its full completion and the fulfilment of the tasks that have been set”.
  • The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, claiming it was a pre-emptive strike against the west.
  • Without Europe’s abandonment of Russia’s energy resources and the complete restriction of Russia’s banking system, Russia’s leadership will not attempt to seek peace, Zelenskiy argued.
  • Ukraine’s border force said more than 870,000 people who fled abroad since Russia’s invasion have returned to the country, including a growing number of women and children, AFP reports.
  • US President Joe Biden’s administration is expected to announce another $750 million in military assistance for Ukraine as soon as Wednesday, two US officials familiar with the matter told Reuters.
  • The Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight US weapons manufacturers on Wednesday to discuss the industry’s capacity to meet Ukraine’s weapons needs if the war with Russia lasts years, two people familiar with the meeting said on Tuesday.
  • The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, spoke with Biden on Tuesday to discuss boosting military and economic support to Ukraine as well as the need to end western reliance on Russian oil and gas.

Russia is reorganising the movement of its military equipment, weapons and personnel to regions in the east of Ukraine, according to a recent report published by Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces.

In the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukrainian soldiers repelled six Russian attacks over the past 24 hours, destroyed two units of automobile equipment and three enemy artillery systems, officials added.

Russia has also “significantly reduced the use of aviation due to weather conditions” the report said.

Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, is on his way to Kyiv to show a “strong message of political support”.

“Heading to Kyiv with a strong message of political support and military assistance,” Nausėda posted to Twitter this morning. “Lithuania will continue backing Ukraine’s fight for its sovereignty and freedom.”

The Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight US weapons manufacturers on Wednesday to discuss the industry’s capacity to meet Ukraine’s weapons needs if the war with Russia lasts years, two people familiar with the meeting said on Tuesday.

Demand for weapons has shot up after Russia’s invasion spurred US and allied weapons transfers to Ukraine. Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The Pentagon’s office of Acquisition and Sustainment, the weapons buyer for the US Department of Defense, will host the 90 minute meeting and Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks was expected to attend, one of the people said.

The Pentagon has said that the most useful weapons are smaller systems such as Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which Washington and allies have been shipping to Ukraine on a nearly daily basis.

The intense usage, as well as the battlefield effectiveness displayed by Ukrainian forces, has driven interest in restocking these weapons.

Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin Corp jointly produce Javelins, while Raytheon makes Stingers. Other top weapons makers are Boeing Co Northrop Grumman , General Dynamics and L3Harris Technologies .

Chemical weapons watchdog ‘concerned’ by Mariupol reports

The world’s chemical weapons watchdog has said it is “concerned” over reports of the use of chemical weapons in the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol.

Reports first emerged Monday from Ukraine’s Azov battalion that a Russian drone had dropped a “poisonous substance” on troops and civilians in Mariupol.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said in a statement:

The Technical Secretariat of the OPCW is monitoring closely the situation in Ukraine. The Secretariat is concerned by the recent unconfirmed report of chemical weapons use in Mariupol, which has been carried in the media over the past 24 hours.

This follows reports in the media over the past few weeks of shelling targeted at chemical plants located in Ukraine, together with accusations levelled by both sides around possible misuse of toxic chemicals.

All 193 OPCW Member States, including the Russian Federation and Ukraine, are parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty of major importance in the field of disarmament that has been in force since 1997.

In doing so, they have solemnly and voluntarily committed never to develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, transfer or use chemical weapons.”

Updated

Here is a selection of some of the latest images to come out of Ukraine today.

Volunteers load bodies of civilians killed in Bucha onto a truck to be taken to a morgue for investigation, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday.

A woman shows a hole in a house after shelling in the village of Zalissya, northeast of Kyiv.

Firefighters work to extinguish a fire after a Russian attack destroyed the building of a school in Kharkiv.

Firefighters work to extinguish a fire after a Russian attack destroyed the building of a Culinary School in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire after a Russian attack destroyed the building of a Culinary School in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP
Local resident Nadiya, 65, shows a hole in a house after shelling in the village of Zalissya, northeast of Kyiv, on Tuesday.
Local resident Nadiya, 65, shows a hole in a house after shelling in the village of Zalissya, northeast of Kyiv, on Tuesday. Photograph: Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images
Volunteers load bodies of civilians killed in Bucha onto a truck to be taken to a morgue for investigation, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday.
Volunteers load bodies of civilians killed in Bucha onto a truck to be taken to a morgue for investigation, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday. Photograph: Rodrigo Abd/AP
A woman carries the portrait of Dmytro Stefienko, 32, a civilian killed during the war in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv.
A woman carries the portrait of Dmytro Stefienko, 32, a civilian killed during the war in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv. Photograph: Rodrigo Abd/AP

Updated

US President Joe Biden’s administration is expected to announce another $750 million in military assistance for Ukraine as soon as Wednesday, two US officials familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The equipment would be funded using Presidential Drawdown Authority, or PDA, in which the president can authorise the transfer of articles and services from US stocks without congressional approval in response to an emergency.

One of the officials said final determinations were still being made about the mix of equipment.

A senior congressional aide said the equipment to be announced would likely include heavy ground artillery systems to Ukraine, including howitzers.

The White House said last week that it has provided more than $1.7 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the 24 February invasion of Ukraine.

The congressional aide said some lawmakers had been informed within the last 24 hours about the upcoming announcement, which was expected within the next 24 to 48 hours.

Weapons shipments have included defensive anti-aircraft Stinger and anti-tank Javelin missiles, as well as ammunition and body armour.

Around 400 civilians have been buried in the town of Severodonetsk near the frontline in eastern Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, the governor of the Lugansk region said on Tuesday.

“In Severodonetsk, pits are dug with a tractor and graves are systematised in the register... During the 48 days of the war about 400 burials,” Sergiy Gaiday said, referring to civilians.

In the nearby town of Lysychansk, he said, the dead “are buried in mass graves”.

In smaller areas on the frontline, “burials are carried out by residents in the yards of residential areas” or “the bodies remain lying in the streets”.

The head of Russian state-controlled propaganda television news network RT, Margarita Simonyan, has described how Russia’s covert operations continue the Kremlin’s info-wars by circumventing various blocks by YouTube and other media platforms.

“We’re now creeping down partisan roads so that no one even knows its us,” the editor-in-chief said.

“We’re not doing it under our brand,” Simonyan said alluding to the notion that Russian propaganda continues to be spread in the west, while hiding the fact that it’s Russian propaganda.

“I won’t divulge any other details,” she added.

The European Union should impose an embargo on Russian oil as soon as possible and transition plans for other suppliers can be done “within a few weeks”, the chairmen of three parliamentarian committees has said.

The EU is drafting proposals for an oil embargo on Russia although there was no agreement to ban Russian crude.

EU diplomats said Berlin, which is heavily reliant on Russian oil, is not actively supporting an immediate embargo.

Germany’s government expects to be able to phase out Russian oil by the end of the year.

German foreign affairs committee chairman Michael Roth said on Tuesday after a visit to Ukraine that cutting Russian oil would be a very important signal because it would affect Russia’s main source of income, Reuters reports.

A quick EU decision could be combined with a transition phase like the import ban on Russian coal, which will come into effect from mid-August after EU ambassadors agreed on it last week, Roth said.

“It can be done within a few weeks because there are other suppliers,” said Anton Hofreiter, the head of the Bundestag’s Europe’s Committee, adding that phase-out period to implement a ban on Russian coal was too long.

The White House has just released the transcript of Joe Biden’s follow-up remarks about his earlier comments on genocide.

Biden first used the word in passing on Tuesday at a domestic policy event in Iowa about the use of ethanol in petrol.

“Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away,” he said.

Questioned later as he boarded Air Force One for take off from Des Moines International Airport, Biden told journalists:

Yes, I called it genocide. It has become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being - being able to be Ukrainian.

And the amount - the evidence is mounting. It’s different than it was last week.

The - more evidence is coming out of the - literally, the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine. And we’re going to only learn more and more about the devastation.

And we’ll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies, but it sure seems that way to me.”

Updated

Ukraine’s Interior Ministry says it has received $4m worth of equipment to digitise Russia’s war crimes.

“Two private companies, AXON and Benish GPS, have donated $4 million worth of special equipment (chest video recorders) to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine,” the agency said in an update over the Telegram messaging app.

“It will allow Ukrainian law enforcement to effectively collect and digitise evidence of Russia’s war crimes against Ukraine,” the ministry added.

The equipment is considered to be “one of the best examples in its field” and the body cameras provided will be used by investigators and forensic scientists to capture traces of war crimes, the statement continued.

Ukrainian security services have said “shackles are waiting” for all pro-Russian traitors of Ukraine after earlier announcing the arrest of Vladimir Putin’s closest ally and opposition politician, Viktor Medvedchuk.

You can be a pro-Russian politician and work for the aggressor state for years. You may be hiding from justice lately. You can even wear a Ukrainian military uniform for camouflage… But will it help you escape punishment? Not at all! Shackles are waiting for you.

Pro-Russian traitors and agents of the Russian secret services, remember - your crimes have no statute of limitations. And hiding places, wherever we find you!”

Chairman of the SBU, Ivan Bakanov, said he thanked all officers involved in Medvedchuk’s arrest.

No traitor will escape punishment and will be held accountable under the Law of Ukraine. For all the severity, for all the crimes of today, which led to his personal actions, including.”

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy has described US president Joe Biden’s earlier characterisation of Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “genocide” as “true words of a true leader”.

“True words of a true leader,” he tweeted early on Wednesday morning.

“Calling things by their names is essential to stand up to evil. We are grateful for US assistance provided so far and we urgently need more heavy weapons to prevent further Russian atrocities.”

The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol said about 21,000 civilian residents of the port city were estimated to have been killed since the start of Russia’s invasion.

In televised comments, Vadym Boichenko said it had been difficult to calculate the exact number of casualties since street fighting had started.

“We know and there is evidence that bodies disappear from the streets,” he said. “We know that there are so-called concentration places where they hide bodies and they then plan to destroy the evidence of tortures they committed in the city of Mariupol. We call it genocide, we call it war crime”.

Referencing the arrest of Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine, the oligarch and opposition politician Viktor Medvedchuk, Zelenskiy described the capture as “symbolic”.

It is very symbolic that Mr. Medvedchuk was detained on Cosmonautics Day.

He has been hiding for 48 days. And finally decided to try to escape from our country. Well, for this ‘astronaut’ - in the bad sense of the word - the famous ‘Let’s go!’ did not work.

I think it is especially cynical of him to use military camouflage. He tried to disguise himself like that. Such a ‘soldier’. Such a ‘patriot’.”

Zelenskiy then proposed a prisoner exchange.

Well, if Medvedchuk chose a military uniform for himself, he falls under the rules of wartime.

I offer the Russian Federation to exchange this guy of yours for our boys and our girls who are now in Russian captivity. It is therefore important that our law enforcement officials and military also consider this possibility.”

Speaking to Russians directly, the Ukrainian president added: “And let Medvedchuk be an example for you. Even the former oligarch did not escape, not to mention much more ordinary criminals from the Russian boondocks. We will get everyone.”

Updated

Zelenskiy also mocked Russia’s progress in its invasion of Ukraine.

“Do you remember how Russia bragged that they would seize Kyiv in 48 hours?” he asked. “Instead, Ukraine has been repelling the enemy for 48 days.”

In 48 hours, which stretched for 48 days, the Russian army has reached a level of irreparable losses higher than that of the Soviet Union in 10 years of war in Afghanistan. Higher than that of Russia in the two wars in Chechnya.

The general list of ‘two hundred’ for Russia will soon reach 20,000. Literally in a few days, if not tonight.

And then what? 30 thousand killed? 40 thousand?

Today in Russia it was once again stated that their so-called ‘special operation’ is supposedly going according to the plan. But, to be honest, no one in the world understands how such a plan could even emerge.

How could a plan providing for the death of tens of thousands of your own soldiers in a little more than a month of war emerge? Who could approve such a plan? And what is the final level of their own losses acceptable for this person?

Dozens or even hundreds of thousands of dead Russians?”

Zelenskiy emphasised the importance of including sanctions against Russian oil in any upcoming EU sanctions packages.

Without Europe’s abandonment of Russia’s energy resources and the complete restriction of Russia’s banking system will Russia’s leadership attempt to seek peace, he argued.

Today, in my address to the parliament and the people of Lithuania, and at the same time to all European nations, I stressed that the sixth package of EU sanctions against Russia must include oil.

Stop multiplying insufficiently strong sanctions packages.

In any case, you will have to acknowledge that only Europe’s abandonment of Russia’s energy resources and the complete restriction of Russia’s banking system can be an argument for Russia’s leadership to seek peace. Without this, Moscow is looking for a military solution.”

'Impossible 'to conduct a full investigation of substance used in Mariupol attack, Zelenskiy says

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said it is “not yet possible” to draw 100% conclusions about what kind of substance was used in Mariupol on Tuesday.

Speaking during his national address late on Tuesday evening, he said:

We take with great attention yesterday’s reports on the use of a projectile with a poisonous substance in Mariupol against the defenders of the city.

It is not yet possible to draw one hundred percent conclusions about what kind of substance it was. Obviously it is impossible to conduct a full investigation and full analysis in the besieged city.

However, given the repeated threats of Russian propagandists to use chemical weapons against the defenders of Mariupol and the repeated use by the Russian army of phosphorus munitions in Ukraine for example, the world must respond now. Respond preventively. Because after the use of weapons of mass destruction, any response will not change anything. And it will only look like a humiliation for the democratic world.”

US President Joe Biden has stood by his characterisation of Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “genocide,” saying Russian President Vladimir Putin “is trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian.”

Biden made the remarks to reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One to return to Washington after an event on the economy in Iowa.

I called it genocide because it has become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian and the evidence is mounting.

We’ll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies, but it sure seems that way to me.”

Catch up

  • Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine, Viktor Medvedchuk, has been captured by Ukrainian law enforcement, Volodomyr Zelenskiy announced. Medvedchuk is the leader of the Opposition Platform for Life, Ukraine’s biggest opposition party. Zelenskiy proposed releasing him to Russia in exchange for Ukrainians captured by Russian forces.
  • Zelenskiy said it is “not yet possible” to draw 100% conclusions about what kind of substance was used in Mariupol on Tuesday. Earlier, he voiced concerns that Russian forces are preparing “a new stage of terror” that could involve the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine. Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the Azov volunteer regiment, claimed on Monday that three people in the southern port city had experienced “poisoning by warfare chemicals, but without catastrophic consequences”.
  • The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko, said the latest estimate was that around 21,000 civilian residents have been killed in the Ukrainian port city since the start of the Russian invasion. The number of deaths in Mariupol could be as high as 22,000, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, told CNN.
  • Putin also claimed Russia’s military operation was going as planned, and that Russia’s aim in Ukraine was to meet all its goals and minimise losses. “We will achieve our objectives, there are no doubts,” Putin told workers at the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s far east. “Its goals are absolutely clear and noble,” Putin said of Russia’s military campaign. He said Russia “had no other choice” but to launch what he calls a “special military operation,” and vowed it would “continue until its full completion and the fulfilment of the tasks that have been set.”
  • US president Joe Biden implied that Putin was committing genocide. While announcing a new rule on ethanol, he said Americans’ budgets and ability to pay for fuel shouldn’t “hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide a half a world away”. He later stood by his characterisation of Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “genocide,” saying Russian President Vladimir Putin “is trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian.” “We’ll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies, but it sure seems that way to me,” he added.
  • A Briton who has been fighting with the Ukrainian armed forces in the besieged city of Mariupol has been forced to surrender along with his unit to the Russians because they have run out of food and ammunition. Aiden Aslin, from Newark, joined Ukraine’s marines in 2018 but has told friends and family that he and his comrades cannot hold out any longer as the Russians gradually tighten their grip on the southern port city.

Updated

Zelenskiy proposes swap of Putin ally for Ukrainian fighters

Following news that Ukrainians had captured the Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk – Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine – Zelenskiy has proposed releasing him to Russia in exchange for Ukrainians captured by Russian forces.

“I propose to the Russian Federation to exchange this guy of yours” for Ukrainian men and women in Russian captivity, he said in an address posted to Telegram.

Updated

Joe Biden has implied that Vladimir Putin was committing genocide.

“Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide a half a world away,” the US president said.

Speaking in Iowa, where he announced a new rule on ethanol, Biden said: “To help deal with this Putin price hike, I’ve authorized the release of one million barrels per day from the strategic petroleum reserve.”

Biden did not mention Putin by name, and has previously stopped short of calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a genocide.

Updated

Victoria Spartz, the first Ukrainian-born member of US Congress, is asking the US state department to redeploy its diplomats to Kyiv.

The US and other countries withdrew diplomats in the lead-up to Russia’s invasion. The US moved diplomats to Lviv and then to Poland - and eventually suspended diplomatic services.

The EU has returned diplomats to Ukraine, and Spartz suggested that the US do the same.

Last week, Zelenskiy urged allied nations to send back their diplomats:

Please come back, everybody who is brave, please come back to our capital and continue working.

Updated

Dutch authorities have impounded 20 yachts due to Ukraine war sanctions.

“Following the sanctions against Russia and Belarus, customs placed 20 yachts in nine shipyards and traders under increased surveillance,” Dutch customs authorities said. “Because these 20 yachts are under increased surveillance, they are not authorised to be delivered, transferred or exported.”

Fourteen of the yachts are under construction, while six are in storage or maintenance. Four have been linked to someone on the EU sanctions list, according to authorities.

Updated

This article from Time Magazine published in February before the invasion gives helpful insight into the friendship between Viktor Medvedchuk, the leader of the Opposition Platform for Life, what was Ukraine’s biggest pro-Russia political party, and Vladmir Putin. Ukraine officials just announced that after being in hiding since the beginning of the invasion, Medvedchuk has been captured in Ukraine.

They holiday together on the Black Sea. They conduct business. They obsess over the bonds between their countries and the Western forces they see pulling them apart.

“Our relationship has developed over 20 years,” Medvedchuk told me in a rare interview last spring in Kyiv, near the start of the current standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine. “I don’t want to say I exploit that relationship, but you could say it has.”

Putin could say the same about Medvedchuk. The leading voice for Russian interests in Ukraine, Medvedchuk’s political party is the biggest opposition force in parliament, with millions of supporters. Over the past year, that party has come under attack. Medvedchuk was charged with treason in May and placed under house arrest in Kyiv. Just last month, the U.S. accused him and his allies of plotting to stage a coup with help from the Russian military.

Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska gave an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour over email – the primary way the first lady has been communicating with the public as she stays in hiding with her two children.

In the interview, Zelenska said her priority has been assisting women and children in the country, particularly those most vulnerable – including children with cancer or disabilities and orphans, and getting them safely to other countries as refugees.

She said she is also working on importing incubators to Ukraine to “support newborns in cities that are being bombed by Russians”. She said that two devices have been delivered and eight more incubators will also be distributed.

Zelenska said that she and her children have been forbidden to stay with her husband in the president’s office due to safety concerns.

“[The war] is like walking a tightrope: If you start thinking how you do it, you lose time and balance. So, to hold on, you just must go ahead and do what you do. In the same way, as far as I know, all Ukrainians hold on,” she said, adding:

Many of those who escaped from the battlefields alone, who saw death, say the main cure after the experience is to act, to do something, to be helpful for somebody. I am personally supported by the fact that I try to protect and support others. Responsibility disciplines.

Updated

The official Twitter account of Ukraine’s Security Service, the country’s law enforcement agency, posted on Twitter another picture of Viktor Medvedchuk, Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine who had been in hiding since he fled his house arrest at the beginning of the invasion.

In the tweet, the Security Service says that Medvedchuk was wearing a Ukrainian army uniform as a “disguise”.

Updated

Zelenskiy announces capture of Putin ally in Ukraine

Volodomyr Zelenskiy announced that oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine, has been captured by Ukrainian law enforcement. On his official Telegram account, Zelenskiy posted a picture of Medvedchuk in handcuffs.

Medvedchuk is the leader of the Opposition Platform for Life, Ukraine’s biggest opposition party. In March, the party was one of several that Zelenskiy suspended due to its links to Russia. Ukrainian authorities had put Medvedchuk under house arrest, but he escaped three days after Russia invaded Ukraine 24 February. His whereabouts had been unknown until today’s announcement.

Updated

This is Lauren Aratani taking over from Léonie Chao-Fong

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said the US cannot verify reports of possible chemical weapon use by Russia in Ukraine. The leader of the Azov volunteer regiment in Mariupol said earlier today that three of its members have experienced “poisoning by chemical warfare, but without catastrophic consequences”.

At a press conference moments ago, Blinken said:

We are not in the position to confirm anything. I don’t think the Ukrainians are either.

We had credible information that Russian forces may use a variety of riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents, so that would cause stronger symptoms to weaken and incapacitate entrenched Ukrainian fighters and civilians as part of the aggressive campaign to take Mariupol.

Blinken added that the use of chemical weapons is of “a real concern” and US officials are aware of the possibility that chemical weapons may be used.

Updated

Today so far

It has just past 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

  • The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko, said the latest estimate was that around 21,000 civilian residents have been killed in the Ukrainian port city since the start of the Russian invasion. The number of deaths in Mariupol could be as high as 22,000, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, told CNN.
  • A Briton who has been fighting with the Ukrainian armed forces in the besieged city of Mariupol has been forced to surrender along with his unit to the Russians because they have run out of food and ammunition. Aiden Aslin, from Newark, joined Ukraine’s marines in 2018 but has told friends and family that he and his comrades cannot hold out any longer as the Russians gradually tighten their grip on the southern port city.

That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, today. I’ll be back tomorrow. My colleague Lauren Aratani will continue to bring you the latest news from the war in Ukraine.

Updated

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, spoke with the US president, Joe Biden, today to discuss boosting military and economic support to Ukraine as well as the need to end western reliance on Russian oil and gas, Downing Street said.

In a statement, it said:

The leaders discussed the need to accelerate assistance to Ukraine, including bolstering military and economic support, as the Ukrainian forces prepare for another Russian onslaught in the east of the country.

The pair also agreed to continue joint efforts to ratchet up the economic pressure on [Vladimir] Putin and decisively end western reliance on Russian oil and gas.

Updated

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has rejected a request by the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to visit Kyiv along with other European politicians on Wednesday.

Steinmeier, a former foreign minister and erstwhile ally of the ex-chancellor Gerhard Schröder, is on a state visit in Poland, where he is discussing the implications of the Russian war in Ukraine with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda.

According a report in the German newspaper Bild, Steinmeier had planned to travel to Kyiv with the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland on Wednesday. However, his request for a meeting was rejected by Zelenskiy, with Bild citing the reason as the German Social Democrat’s previously close ties to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and his history as an advocate of close Russian-German economic ties.

“We all here know Steinmeier’s close ties to Russia, which have also been marked by the Steinmeier formula,” an anonymous Ukrainian diplomat told Bild.

He is currently not welcome in Kyiv. We will see whether that will change one day.

The “Steinmeier formula” was a proposal made by the then foreign minister in 2016 with the intention of breaking a deadlock in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia over peace in eastern Ukraine. The proposal, a simplified version of the Minsk agreements, called for elections in the separatist-held territories under Ukrainian legislation, supervised by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The attempt failed after neither Moscow nor Kyiv implemented the Minsk agreement.

On Tuesday afternoon, Steinmeier seemed to confirm that his request for a meeting with Zelenskiy in Kyiv had been rejected by Ukraine. The German president said he had wanted to travel to Kyiv “to send out a strong message of European solidarity with Ukraine”.

Steinmeier said:

I was prepared. But apparently – and I have to acknowledge this – it was not desired in Kyiv.

Updated

A Briton who has been fighting with the Ukrainian armed forces in the besieged city of Mariupol has been forced to surrender along with his unit to the Russians because they have run out of food and ammunition.

Aiden Aslin, from Newark, joined Ukraine’s marines in 2018 but has told friends and family that he and his comrades cannot hold out any longer as the Russians gradually tighten their grip on the southern port city.

Aslin’s mother, Ang Wood, told the BBC that her son’s unit had “put up one hell of a fight” but had to call it a day because they had “no weapons left”. She called on the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, to find a way to “take Putin down” in an interview.

Aslin tweeted under the name Cossackgundi, although he has become increasingly unable to do so recently, leaving the administration of the account in the hands of a friend who will continue to comment on the war under his user name.

Previously Aslin had fought for the Syrian Kurdish YPG against Isis between 2015 and 2017 before relocating to Ukraine.

A friend of Aslin’s, Brennan Philips, also said Aslin “can’t get out...can’t fight back” and added

I’m sure if they had a bullet left, they would have shot it.

In a video filmed in February before the war Aslin said he had “originally wanted to be a cop” but decided to join to fight Isis so that he would not “sit here and complain about everything, but go do something about it” - and that he recognised that a war with Russia could mean “a lot of us will die, get seriously injured”.

Ukraine’s border force said more than 870,000 people who fled abroad since Russia’s invasion have returned to the country, including a growing number of women and children, AFP reports.

Currently between 25,000 and 30,000 Ukrainians are returning each day, border force spokesperson Andriy Demchenko said.

Demchenko said:

They say they see that the situation is safer, especially in the western regions and they can no longer stay abroad.

They are ready to return to the country and stay here.

The shift comes after Russian forces retreated from near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in preparation for ramping up their offensive in the east of the country.

Ukraine’s interior ministry said earlier this month that 537,000 people had returned to Ukraine after fleeing abroad.

Updated

A key Russian railway bridge has been damaged in the border region with Ukraine in a potential act of sabotage as Russia relies on its railroads to shift its attacking forces in preparation for a massive assault on eastern Ukraine.

Photographs from the bridge in Russia’s Belgorod region showed that section of rail had been forced upward, possibly due to an explosion. The photographs, as well as news of the incident, were first published on Tuesday by the local Russian governor and local media.

“There are no casualties,” governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote in an online statement.

Only the railway track is destroyed… I will inform you about the reasons later.

The incident comes as Russia has begun militarising its border regions near Ukraine by raising threat alerts, erecting military checkpoints and mobilising local townspeople in a sign that Russia’s war effort is shifting toward east Ukraine.

Ukraine has not confirmed if it stands behind the attack on the railway bridge, which commentators said would make sense as a cross-border raid meant to slow Russia’s shifting of heavy artillery and other military vehicles needed to prepare for an assault in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Russia relies heavily on railroads to move its military equipment. The bridge sits just four miles from the border on a rail-line that goes south into Ukraine and lies on a supply line between Russia and the territory it holds near the city of Izyum near the Donbas.

Updated

Morgues in several cities in eastern Ukraine’s embattled region of Luhansk are full, according to Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration.

In a statement on Telegram, he said cities were experiencing power cuts and in some places, complete loss of electricity.

Haidai said:

Bodies also lie in basements. It is impossible to keep them, so during the quiet breaks from shelling, volunteers and utility workers bury the bodies in new designated places.

In Sievierodonetsk, the regional military administration organised a new burial place in a “relatively safe place”, continued.

Pits are dug with a tractor and graves are systematised in the register.

Every dead or deceased person is buried naturally in a separate grave, during the 48 days of the war — about 400 burials. Most are identified.

Updated

Russia is shelling Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk round the clock, Donetsk’s governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said.

Speaking on national television, Kyrylenko said Moscow is now in the final stages of regrouping its forces in the area, Reuters reports.

He added that Russian forces were not allowing residents of the besieged port city of Mariupol to leave even in their own cars.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said 2,671 civilians had been evacuated from front line areas today, including 208 people from Mariupol, 328 people from Luhansk and 2,135 from various cities and towns in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Updated

Summary

It is 7.30pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

  • The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko, said the latest estimate was that around 21,000 civilian residents have been killed in the Ukrainian port city since the start of the Russian invasion. The number of deaths in Mariupol could be as high as 22,000, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, told CNN.

Hello, I’m Léonie Chao-Fong reporting from London. I’ll continue to bring you the latest developments from the war in Ukraine.

Updated

The World Bank is planning financial support to Ukraine worth $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to help keep critical services running as the country fights a fresh assault by Russia in Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war.

The bank said the funds would be used to support the continuation of key government services, including wages for hospital workers, pensions for elderly people, and social programmes for vulnerable people.

In addition to $944m of emergency financing already mobilised by the World Bank, the institution said it was preparing the fresh funding to help essential government services continue to function during the war.

The $1.5bn investment project financing includes $1bn of support through its International Development Association arm, as well as $472m in funding guaranteed by its International Bank for Reconstruction and Development division.

Announcing the funds in a speech in Poland on Tuesday, David Malpass , the president of the World Bank, said the organisation was providing immediate working capital for companies providing critical supplies to Ukraine.

He said:

We are working to help Ukrainian refugees as they plan their return home, help host communities as they absorb Ukrainians, and help the many millions of internally displaced persons in Ukraine who have lost their homes and livelihoods.

Founded in 1944 to help Europe rebuild after the second world war, the Washington-based organisation includes Russia and Ukraine as members.

Malpass, who met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Munich on 19 February, days before the outbreak of the war, said the bank stood “ready to help Ukraine with reconstruction when the time comes”.

Updated

The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, claiming it was a pre-emptive strike against the west.

Lukashenko was speaking to reporters following talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the Belarusian state-owned news agency BelTA reports.

Lukashenko said:

If only Russia had delayed its military operation just a little bit, they would have launched, according to them, a crushing blow on Russia’s territory - on neighbouring regions. We are now clearly convinced that this was possible.

So if someone doubts the rightness of the decision, imagine what we could have seen just half a month or a month later.

Updated

An initial report circulating on Monday night from Ukraine said Russian forces had used “a poisonous substance of unknown origin” against Ukrainian civilians and military holed up in the besieged city of Mariupol.

The victims were described as having “respiratory failure” and a rather specific diagnosis of “vestibulo-atactic syndrome”, nominally inner ear problems leading to dizziness and perhaps vomiting, eye twitching and loss of balance.

Several people had reported seeing ‘white smoke’ from the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol before falling ill.
Several people had reported seeing ‘white smoke’ from the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol before falling ill. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

There was immediate speculation that the events described were a chemical weapons attack. Liz Truss, the British foreign secretary, said the UK was urgently investigating while a Pentagon spokesperson said the reports “if true, are deeply concerning”.

But some observers have expressed scepticism that the available evidence points towards a chemical weapons attack.

Continue reading Dan’s piece here: Did Russia really use chemical weapons in Ukraine? Experts remain sceptical

Updated

More than 20,000 civilians killed in Mariupol, mayor says

The mayor of Mariupol said the latest estimate was that around 21,000 civilian residents have been killed in the besieged Ukrainian port city since the start of the Russian invasion, Reuters reports.

In televised comments, the mayor, Vadym Boichenko, said it had been difficult to calculate the exact number of casualties since street fighting had started.

The number of deaths in Mariupol could be as high as 22,000, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration.

Kyrylenko told CNN:

The Mariupol situation makes it difficult to comment on the number of casualties, the city is under siege and blockaded.

We are currently discussing 20,000 to 22,000 people dead in Mariupol.

Graves of civilians killed next to apartment buildings in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 10, 2022.
Graves of civilians killed next to apartment buildings in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Updated

A member of the Ukrainian delegation, Mykhailo Podolyak, said negotiations with Russians were very hard but they were continuing, Reuters reports.

Podolyak added that Russia was trying to put pressure on the talks with its public statements and that negotiations were continuing at the level of working sub-groups.

His comments came after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, earlier said peace talks with Ukraine were in a “dead end”.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See has spoken out against the Vatican’s plans for the Stations of the Cross procession led by Pope Francis on Good Friday.

The Vatican said yesterday that for part of the route, the cross will be carried by a Ukrainian and a Russian family.

The ambassador, Andrii Yurash, wrote on Twitter that there is “a general worry in Ukraine and other communities” about the plan to put Ukrainian and Russian families together and that he is working to explain “the possible consequences” of it.

There’s been some reaction (not yet from the Vatican). The director of a Catholic magazine said “the pope is a shepherd, not a politician”.

A prominent Russian opposition activist and outspoken critic of the invasion of Ukraine has been sentenced in Moscow to 15 days in jail on charges of disobeying police orders when leaving his home on Monday night, his lawyer said.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, 40, is a veteran Kremlin critic who says he was deliberately poisoned in Moscow in 2015 and 2017 as retaliation for his lobbying efforts to impose US and EU sanctions against Russian officials accused of human rights abuses. A close friend of the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot and killed in 2015, Kara-Murza nearly died from kidney failure in the first incident.

His longtime lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, said police had accused Kara-Murza of “changing his walking pace and trying to escape” when they approached him outside his house on Monday evening.

It was not immediately clear if Kara-Murza’s arrest was linked to his opposition to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, but it comes amid an unprecedented crackdown on independent media and anti-war dissent. Last month, the Russian parliament passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military.

Kara-Murza, who studied at Cambridge University, has been a vocal opponent of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, launching an anti-war committee with other leading Russian opposition figures. He has also been one of the few prominent opposition figures still living in Russia, as many have fled the country out of safety concerns after the jailing last year of Alexei Navalny.

The US cannot confirm reports of Russian use of chemical weapons in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, a senior defence official said.

From Foreign Policy’s Jack Detsch:

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby earlier said the US is closely monitoring social media reports claiming Russian forces deployed chemical weapons in Mariupol.

From NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer:

Updated

Vladimir Putin has described the invasion of Ukraine as “inevitable” during a visit to the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s Amur Oblast region.

The Russian president also repeated his previous remarks about Nazism, which have dominated Russian state media as a justification for the military campaign, as well as saying his country would not be isolated from the rest of the world.

A Catholic charity has said that two its staff and five of their relatives have been killed in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Agence France-Presse reports that Caritas said in a statement: “The tragic attack probably took place on 15 March, when a tank fired shots at the building of the Caritas centre in Mariupol.”

A report on the Vatican’s news portal, Vatican News, said the tank was Russian, citing unnamed “local Caritas sources”.

Difficulties in communicating with those inside the besieged city have meant details of civilian casualties have been scarce and hard to verify. The mayor of Mariupol has put the death toll at more than 10,000.

Caritas said it was not able to definitively say what had happened, but it believed the two female staff members “and their family took refuge in the centre during the shelling”.

“This dramatic news leaves the Caritas family horrified and shocked,” said Aloysius John, the secretary general of Caritas Internationalis, criticising “the indiscriminate massacre of civilians”.

Updated

Putin: peace talks with Ukraine in a 'dead end', military operation going as planned

Russian president Vladimir Putin has been speaking again at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far east of Russia, where he is visiting with the Belarusian leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko. The key lines that have been reported by news agency Tass and Reuters so far include:

  • Putin said Ukraine had deviated from the agreements made at a peace conference in Istanbul, and that talks are in a “dead end”.
  • He said the military operation was going as planned, and that Russia’s aim in Ukraine was to meet all its goals and minimise losses. He said the end of the military operation depends on the intensity of the fighting.
  • Putin claimed Russia’s financial system was operating well and the west’s economic “blitzkrieg” had failed, but he said the risk of harm from sanctions could rise in the medium and longer term. He said regarding the sanctions that he hoped common sense would prevail in the west.
  • He said the west does not understand that difficult conditions unite the Russian people.
  • Putin said images and footage of dead bodies strewn across the Ukrainian town of Bucha were fake.

Updated

Mayor of Bucha: 403 bodies of people believed killed by Russian forces found so far

The mayor of the Ukrainian town of Bucha, near Kyiv, said that authorities had so far found 403 bodies of people they believed were killed by Russian forces during their occupation of the area, but that the number was growing.

Anatoliy Fedoruk added during a briefing that it was too early for residents to return to the town, after Russian soldiers retreated late last month.

Reuters and the Guardian could not immediately verify Fedoruk’s comments about the number of people found dead in Bucha.

Authorities began recovering bodies from a mass grave the Church of St Andrew and All Saints in the town, which was visited last week by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

Russia has denied that it deliberately targeted civilians. Russian president Vladimir Putin today described the situation in Bucha as a fake, according to quotes transcribed by the Tass news agency.

Updated

This is a selection of some of the latest images to be sent to us from Ukraine over the newswires.

A man looks at the train carrying his wife leaving Slovyansk central station, in the Donbas region.
A man looks at the train carrying his wife leaving Slovyansk central station, in the Donbas region. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
Books on shelves inside a library damaged as a result of shelling in Chernihiv, northern Ukraine.
Books on the shelves are seen inside a library damaged as a result of shelling in Chernihiv, northern Ukraine. Photograph: Future Publishing/Getty Images
80-year-old Anna Zamogilniya is seen in front of her house in Bucha.
Eighty-year-old Anna Zamogilniya in front of her house in Bucha. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Flowers are placed on the rubble of destroyed apartment buildings in Donetsk.
Flowers placed on the rubble of destroyed apartment buildings in Donetsk. Photograph: Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA

Updated

Here is Jon Henley with his latest full report on today’s events in Ukraine:

Civilians have fled eastern Ukraine in advance of a widely forecast attack and Russian forces closed in on the ruins of the southern city of Mariupol, as Vladimir Putin insisted Moscow’s invasion would achieve what he called its “noble” aims.

Ukrainian forces were preparing on Tuesday for a new Russian offensive in the east of the country, with the governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Gaidai, urging residents to evacuate as soon as possible using agreed humanitarian corridors.

“It’s far more scary to remain and to burn in your sleep from a Russian shell,” Gaidai said on social media. “Evacuate: with every day the situation is getting worse. Take your essential items and head to the pickup point.”

Russian troops also continued to pound the Azovstal industrial district of Mariupol where Ukrainian marines were making a last stand in the defence of the strategic port, which has been largely reduced to rubble after six weeks of heavy bombardment.

Russia is believed to be trying to seize Mariupol to connect occupied Crimea with the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk in the eastern Donbas region, but Kyiv insisted its defence of the city was continuing.

“The connection with the units of the defence forces that heroically hold the city is stable and maintained,” Ukraine’s military command said, adding that Russian forces were targeting the town of Popasna, two hours’ drive west of Luhansk, and were also preparing an offensive in the direction of Kurakhove, near Donetsk.

Read more of Jon Henley’s report here: Civilians flee eastern Ukraine ahead of new Russian offensive

Updated

'Danger was always there' with Putin, Obama says

The former US president, Barack Obama, said the threat from Vladimir Putin always existed, but that the Russian president’s “reckless” manner with the invasion of Ukraine would not have been anticipated a decade ago.

Speaking in an interview with NBC’s Today show, Obama said:

He has always been somebody who’s wrapped up in this twisted distorted sense of grievance and ethnic nationalism – that part of Putin, I think, has always been there.

What we’ve seen with the invasion of Ukraine is him being reckless in a way that you might not have anticipated eight, 10 years ago, but the danger was always there.

Asked what, in hindsight, he would have done differently while in office, including when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Obama declined to answer directly.

Instead, he said it was important to “not take our own democracy for granted” and to “stand for and align ourselves with those who believe in freedom and independence”.

Updated

Ukrainian officials are hoping heavy rainfall will force Russian troops to use roads that will make them easy targets for the Ukrainian army, Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Rusi defence and security thinktank, writes.

Updated

Russian hackers attempted to launch a cyber-attack on Ukraine’s power grid last week, Ukrainian officials and cybersecurity researchers said.

In a statement, the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) said the group, dubbed “Sandworm”, deployed destructive and data-wiping malware on computers controlling high-voltage substations in Ukraine, Reuters reports.

The statement read:

The victim organisation suffered two waves of attacks.

The initial compromise took place no later than February 2022. The disconnection of electrical substations and the decommissioning of the company’s infrastructure was scheduled for Friday evening, April 8, 2022.

Officials managed to prevent the attack from taking place, it added.

The malware was an upgraded version of a malicious programme that caused power blackouts in Kyiv in 2016, Slovakian cybersecurity firm Eset said.

The malware was designed to take over the computer networks “in order to cut power”, the firm said. A second, data-wiping, malware was also deployed in order to slow attempts to get power back online, the firm added.

The group has previously been linked to destructive cyber-attacks attributed to Russia. Russia has consistently denied accusations it has launched cyber-attacks on Ukraine.

Updated

A pro-Russian cavalcade in Dublin led by a car with the Z symbol has provoked astonishment and condemnation in Ireland.

About 10 cars with Russian and Irish flags drove in a convoy down the M50 motorway last Sunday afternoon in an apparent display of support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The bonnet of the lead vehicle, a green Jeep, bore the ”Z” symbol that Russian forces use in Ukraine.

The rally is believed to have been organised through a private Facebook group for Russians living in Ireland. Pro-Russia rallies were held in Germany on the same day, including a motorcade rally in Hanover.

“It’s absolutely disgusting that these Russians living in Ireland demonstrate their complete disrespect for [their] country of residence and the Irish people who stand against Russia’s war in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian embassy in Dublin said in a tweet that included video footage of the rally. The embassy said “Z” symbolised killings and atrocities and should be banned.

The cavalcade occurred three days after Irish legislators gave a standing ovation to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who thanked Ireland for its support for Ukraine in a video address to both chambers of parliament.

The cavalcade reportedly set out from the Maldron hotel near Dublin airport and made its way down the M50, Ireland’s busiest motorway, bearing Russian, Soviet and Irish flags.

Updated

A Colombian citizen in Moscow has been arrested on charges of “spreading false information” about Russia’s armed forces on social media, in one of the first known cases of a foreign national facing possible prosecution under Russia’s new “fake news” law.

Giraldo Saray Alberto Enrique, 40, is accused of “publicly spreading knowingly false information about the Russian armed forces”. If found guilty, he faces a fine of up to five million roubles (£46,000) and up to 10 years in jail, the Russian state-owned news agency Tass reported.

He is accused of disseminating false information with the help of accomplices who are also being identified, Tass said, citing law enforcement sources, but offered no details of what was written.

The Russian parliament last month passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military. Under the new law, “fake” news can include any mention of Russian forces harming civilians or suffering losses on the battlefield.

Updated

Women wave to bid farewell to relatives as they are about to leave by train at Sloviansk central station, in the Donbas region on April 12, 2022.
Women wave to bid farewell to relatives as they are about to leave by train at Sloviansk central station, in the Donbas region on Tuesday. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
A man embraces his wife as she is about to board a train at Sloviansk central station on April 12, 2022.
A man embraces his wife as she is about to board a train at Sloviansk central station. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Six people found shot dead in basement outside Kyiv, Ukraine says

Ukrainian prosecutors said six people had been found shot dead in the basement of a building in Brovary, outside the capital, Kyiv, AFP reports.

In a statement, Ukraine’s prosecutor general said:

The bodies of six civilians with gunshot wounds were found in a basement during an inspection of a private residence.

The killings were carried out by Russian forces who seized control of the area at the beginning of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the prosecutor general said.

Note: the Guardian has not been able to verify this information.

Updated

Zelenskiy urges EU to impose sanctions on all Russian banks and oil

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, urged European leaders to impose sanctions on all Russian banks and oil, warning them: “We cannot wait.”

In a video address to the Lithuanian parliament today, Zelenskiy said:

We need powerful decisions, and the EU must take them now. They must sanction oil and all Russian banks …

Each EU state must set terms for when they will refuse or limit (Russian) energy sources such as gas.

Only then will the Russian government understand they need to seek peace, that the war is turning into a catastrophe for them.

Members of Lithuanian parliament give Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a standing ovation before he speaks in a virtual address to Lithuanian parliament in Vilnius, Lithuania, April 12, 2022.
Members of the Lithuanian parliament give the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a standing ovation before he speaks in a virtual address to MPs in Vilnius on Tuesday. Photograph: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP

Zelenskiy told Lithuanian lawmakers that Russian soldiers had behaved the same everywhere they had stayed as they did in the town of Bucha, 18.5 miles (30km) north-west of Kyiv.

The Ukrainian president also accused Russia of deporting hundreds of thousands of people from occupied Ukrainian regions into “filtration camps”. The Kremlin has denied targeting and abusing civilians in the conflict.

Updated

A chemical weapons expert is urging caution over claims that chemical weapons may have been used during an attack on the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, noting that there remains “a paucity of information” about what happened.

Dan Kaszeta, from the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said it is “legitimately difficult” to assess these situations remotely, particularly when relying on mainly second-hand or third-hand reports instead of evidence from the scene.

The symptoms that the Ukrainian soldiers are reportedly showing, such as difficulty breathing, “does not tell us much”, he said.

What we really have is people being dizzy. What we don’t have is signs and symptoms (and any kind of medical diagnostics) that narrow the investigative focus to chemicals, let alone a specific chemical warfare agent.

“The fog of war is real,” Kaszeta said.

And this is a swamped yet fragile information space. It’s a front in an information war.

A Russian citizen in Poland has been arrested and charged with espionage, a spokesperson for the Polish minister coordinator of special services said.

The man had been living in Poland for 18 years and carrying out business activity, Reuters reports.

He was detained on 6 April and will be held in custody for three months, the spokesperson said in a statement, adding:

The evidence gathered by the military counter-intelligence service indicates that the man, instructed by the Russian special services, collected information concerning the military readiness of the Polish armed forces and of Nato troops.

Updated

A British man fighting in Ukraine has said his unit has no choice but to surrender to Russian forces in the besieged city of Mariupol, his family and friends told the BBC.

Aiden Aslin, from Newark, Nottinghamshire, is a marine in the Ukrainian military after moving to Ukraine in 2018. Over the past few weeks, his unit has been defending the southern port city of Mariupol, which has come under heavy bombardment by Russian forces.

His mother, Ang Wood, told the BBC:

He called me and said they have no weapons left to fight. I love my son. He is my hero. They put up one hell of a fight.

But he sounded OK. Boris [Johnson] needs to take Putin down.

A friend of Aslin also said he had spoken to him by phone and was told the unit had no food, ammunition or supplies, leaving them no option but to surrender.

He said:

They can’t get out. They can’t fight back. So they had no choice. I’m sure sure if they had a bullet left, they would have shot it.

From British journalist Jake Hanrahan:

Russia has previously threatened to bring criminal prosecution against any foreigners who travel to Ukraine to fight.

A Russian defence ministry spokesperson, Igor Konashenkov, said “none of the mercenaries the west is sending to Ukraine to fight” would be considered “combatants in accordance with international humanitarian law or enjoy the status of prisoners of war”.

However, Aslin is a member of the Ukrainian marines and not a foreign mercenary. According to reports, he was in his fourth year with the Ukrainian armed forces.

Hello, I’m Léonie Chao-Fong and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments from the war in Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.

Updated

Today so far …

  • Russian president Vladimir Putin has justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying he had taken “the right decision”. Visiting Vostochny Cosmodrome, he said: “On the one hand, we are helping and saving people, and on the other, we are simply taking measures to ensure the security of Russia itself. It’s clear that we didn’t have a choice. It was the right decision.”
  • Ukraine is checking unverified information that Russia may have used chemical weapons while besieging the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Malyar, has said. The local council in Mariupol has written on the Telegram messaging service that it was not yet possible to examine the area where the unknown substance had allegedly been used because of enemy fire.
  • Russia’s defence ministry has not made any comment on the allegations. The pro-Russian separatist forces of the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk have issued a denial that they have used any chemical agents.
  • Russia’s defence ministry says it has destroyed Ukrainian ammunition depots in the Khmelnytskyi and Kyiv regions.
  • Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said nine humanitarian corridors had been agreed to evacuate civilians today. That included from Mariupol – although civilians will have to use private cars.
  • More than 10,000 civilians have died in Mariupol, the city’s mayor has said. Vadym Boychenko said the death toll could surpass 20,000, as weeks of attacks and privation leave bodies “carpeted through the streets”.
  • Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, partly blamed the Ukrainian loss of life on western nations that had not sent weapons to bolster the war effort. “Unfortunately, we are not getting as much as we need to end this war sooner,” he said. “Time is being lost. The lives of Ukrainians are being lost … And this is also the responsibility of those who still keep the weapons Ukraine needs in their armoury.”
  • More than 6,000 alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine are under investigation, Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office has said.
  • Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion
  • Telecoms equipment maker Nokia is pulling out of the Russian market. The decision will affect about 2,000 workers.

That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will hand you over to Léonie Chao-Fong for the next few hours.

Updated

Russia has used cluster munitions in Ukraine that litter civilian areas with bombs over an area of up to 350 metres, according to a report by the explosive weapons watchdog, Airwars.

Investigators at Airwars has released a report that analysed a strike on a hospital and blood donation centre in Kharkiv that reportedly killed at least one person. It documented a total of 26 impact sites spanning 350 metres in the February attack.

Anatomy of a Russian cluster munition strike.

Airwars said several munitions experts it consulted believed the wide distribution of damage at Kharkiv could suggest Russia is detonating cluster munitions at a higher altitude than normal, making them even more indiscriminate.

More than 100 countries have signed a UN convention banning their use, though Russia, Ukraine and the US are not signatories.

“It has long been known that cluster munitions are indiscriminate, but this investigation highlights the sheer scale of suffering a single strike can cause,” Emily Tripp, Airwars’ director, said.

“While more than 100 countries have banned their use, many of the world’s largest militaries still refuse to do so – despite the inevitable risk to civilians.”

Updated

Putin: invasion of Ukraine was 'the right decision'

Vladimir Putin has justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying he had taken “the right decision”. The Russian president is visiting Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Amur Oblast in Russia’s far east. Reuters quotes Putin saying about the country’s military operation in Ukraine:

Its goals are absolutely clear and noble. On the one hand, we are helping and saving people, and on the other, we are simply taking measures to ensure the security of Russia itself. It’s clear that we didn’t have a choice. It was the right decision.

The details of allegations that a chemical weapon was used in Mariupol are still sketchy and unclear. Reuters reports that the local council in Mariupol has written on the Telegram messaging service that it was not yet possible to examine the area where the unknown substance had allegedly been used because of enemy fire.

It added that the city’s civilian population had minimal contact with the unspecified substance, but that Ukrainian soldiers had come into closer contact with it and were now being observed for possible symptoms.

There is a video being shared on social media from the Azov fighters in the besieged eastern Ukrainian city, which purports to feature witnesses of a chemical attack. However, the video and the claims within it have not been independently verified.

Russia’s defence ministry has not responded to a request for comment on the issue. The pro-Russian separatist forces of the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk have issued a denial that they have used any chemical agents.

The three parties that make up Germany’s coalition government increasingly look at odds over the speed and concrete implications of the country’s historic U-turn on exporting lethal weapons.

The foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, on Monday said Ukraine needed “heavy weapons” while seemingly indirectly criticising the Social Democratic party (SPD) of chancellor Olaf Scholz, saying now was “not the time for excuses but for creativity and pragmatism”.

Defence minister Christiane Lambrecht, of the SPD, said over the weekend that German capacities for supplying Ukraine with arms from its own arsenal without endangering its own security position had “reached a limit”.

The head of the German parliament’s defence committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann of the Free Democratic party (FDP), urged the government to show more leadership on the issue and financially support the transfer of weapons from eastern European arsenals to Ukraine.

Foreign policy spokesperson Norbert Röttgen, of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), accused Scholz of “pursuing a failed policy” towards Russia by stalling on arms deliveries to Ukraine.

On 27 February, chancellor Scholz had announced a historic U-turn on exporting lethal weapons into conflict zones, as well as a plan to set up a €100bn fund to modernise its military and increase defence spending to meet the Nato goal of 2% of GDP.

Updated

Austria’s chancellor said a meeting with Vladimir Putin has left him “not optimistic” that a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine was in sight, as the Russian president was trapped in his own logic about the nature of the conflict.

Karl Nehammer, of the conservative Austrian People’s party, met with Putin for about 75 minutes in Novo-Ogaryovo on Monday, making him the first European Union leader to meet the Russian president since the start of the war.

In a conversation Nehammer described as “direct, open and tough”, Nehammer said he had told Putin the EU would increase sanctions as long as there were further casualties in the war, and had raised his impressions from Bucha, which he had visited ahead of the trip to Russia.

Putin outright rejected the Bucha allegations, Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper reported, claiming they were “false flag” attacks staged by the Ukrainian side.

“Putin has massively arrived in a mindset whose logic is determined by war, and is acting accordingly”, Nehammer told Austrian media. Nonetheless the Russian president continued to reject the term “war”.

Updated

Putin: objectives in Ukraine 'noble', clash with anti-Russian forces had been inevitable

Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine would undoubtedly achieve what he said were its “noble” objectives.

Speaking at an awards ceremony at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far east of Russia, where he is also expected to meet the Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko, Putin was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies that Moscow had no other choice but to launch a military operation to protect Russia, and that a clash with Ukraine’s anti-Russian forces had been inevitable and just a question of time.

Reuters adds that Putin said his country does not plan to isolate itself from the rest of the world, and that Russian forces carrying out Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine were acting bravely and efficiently. He said Russia could no longer tolerate the genocide being carried out on the Russian-speaking people in the Donbas region.

Updated

Here are some of the latest images that have been sent to us of the war on Ukraine over the newswires.

The wreck of a civil bus seen in Kyiv region.
The wreck of a civil bus seen in Kyiv region. Photograph: Sergii Kharchenko/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
Instructors train Ukrainian nationals at a shooting range in Brno, Czech Republic.
Instructors train Ukrainian nationals at a shooting range in Brno, Czech Republic. Photograph: Petr David Josek/AP
Aftermath of Russian shelling of the Yuri Gagarin stadium in Chernihiv.
Aftermath of Russian shelling of the Yuri Gagarin stadium in Chernihiv. Photograph: Celestino Arce/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
A family from Avdiivka find temporary housing in the Odesa Way Home Charity Foundation.
A family from Avdiivka find temporary housing in the Odesa Way Home Charity Foundation. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Russian president Vladimir Putin is visiting Russia’s far-east Amur region today, where he is expected to meet the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

Reuters reports the two leaders are due to head to the Vostochny Cosmodrome to mark Russia’s annual Cosmonautics Day, commemorating the first manned space flight made in 1961 by the Soviet Union cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

They are expected to inspect the spaceport and meet staff, and to give a joint news conference.

Updated

Ukraine deputy defence minister: 'phosphorus munitions' may have been used in Mariupol

Ukraine is checking unverified information that Russia may have used chemical weapons while besieging the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Malyar, has said.

“There is a theory that these could be phosphorus munitions,” Malyar said in televised comments, adding: “Official information will come later.”

Reuters reports that Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Interfax news agency is reporting that the pro-Russian separatist forces in the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk have denied using chemical weapons in Mariupol.

Updated

Gen Richard Dannatt, who was the UK’s chief of the general staff from 2006 to 2009, has been highly critical of British efforts to settle refugees from Ukraine this morning. Interviewed by Sky News, he said:

European Union countries have been pretty open on accepting Ukrainian refugees. The United Kingdom, by contrast, has put together – despite all the rhetoric from the government – a pretty complicated system.

The form-filling is very onerous. It would be much better if a family only had to make one application. Typically, it’s a mother, and one or two or three children filling in an application. But we’ve got a situation whereby even a two or three year old child has to have a separate application and answer quite ridiculous questions asking what sort of former employment they have been in, and have they been involved in the armed forces.

Obviously, this has translated into a very large number of applications being processed by the UK visa and immigration service at a speed that’s ridiculously slow.

The UK government says that it has processed over 40,000 visa and that about 12,000 Ukrainians have already reached the country. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees states that about 4.5m Ukrainians have been forced to flee the country.

The chair of Nato’s military committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, is visiting South Korea.

Reuters reports that he told the media in Seoul that it is the sovereign right of countries such as Sweden and Finland to decide if they want to join the alliance.

Speaking to reporters, Bauer said Nato was not a demanding association, and had not pressured any state to join. He told his hosts it was up to South Korea if they wanted to send any weapons to Ukraine themselves, but that non-military aid to Ukraine was also important.

He also reiterated that Nato has made it clear that it will not directly put troops or aircraft into Ukraine.

Updated

Russia’s defence ministry says it has destroyed Ukrainian ammunition depots in the Khmelnytskyi and Kyiv regions, Reuters reports.

Khmelnytskyi and Kyiv are in the west of Ukraine. Most analysts believe that Russia is regrouping to launch a new offensive in the east of Ukraine, and while there is a relative lull in the fighting, Russia’s aim would be to degrade the ability of the Ukrainian armed forces to supply and support their troops defending that eastern territory.

Updated

Gen Richard Dannatt, chief of the general staff in the UK from 2006 to 2009, has been interviewed on Sky News this morning. He described the situation in Ukraine as “increasingly” looking like genocide. On the issue of the possible use of chemical weapons, he said:

I think this is quite possible that at some point the Russians might decide to use chemical weapons. I think we also have to look at who’s now in command for the operation in the east of the Ukraine, Gen Alexander Dvornikov, who established a pretty fearsome reputation in Syria. And certainly in Syria there is clear evidence that he and Russian forces used chemical weapons, so I’m afraid it’s quite possible that we might see chemical weapons being used. Reports are unconfirmed at the present moment. Something like this is beyond the pale, but it’s not beyond possibility.

He went on to say, when asked about how the west should respond:

I think here that Nato has been quite sensible not to set firm hard red lines. Because once you set a red line, and say if this action takes place, that we will do this or the other, and if you do cross that red line, then you become a bit hollow if you don’t carry out that action.

We are accusing Russia quite properly of war crimes, the indiscriminate shelling of civilians, which they’ve been carrying out very widely that we know about. Pressure has got to be continued to be piled on Putin and his senior people, that there are some things that are totally unacceptable, and some things that fall somewhat more within the rules of war. But virtually everything the Russians have been doing is pretty much outside the conventions of war currently.

Updated

In the UK, James Heappey, the armed forces minister, has been representing the government on the morning media round. He was asked about the as-yet-unsubstantiated claims that Russia may have used chemical weapons in Mariupol. He told Sky News viewers:

These are appalling weapons to think about. That they are parts of the discussion is sobering. Let’s be clear, if they are used at all, then President Putin should know that all possible options are on the table in terms of how the west might respond.

It’s important to recognise that there are all sorts of ways in which these things could be used, from the use of gas which is effectively a riot control measure, all the way through to devastating lethal chemical weapons systems.

So I don’t think it’s helpful to be too binary about the situation because these things are highly nuanced. But I also think it’s very important to be very clear with your viewers, who I think have a deep sense of what is right and what is wrong.

There are some things that are beyond the pale, and the use of chemical weapons will get a response, and all options are on the table of what that response could be.

Updated

The US embassy in Kyiv has responded to the latest figures of child casualties from the war that have been issued by Ukraine. It says 183 children have been killed and 342 injured since the Russian invasion began on 24 February. The embassy has tweeted:

After each death of a child – mother, father, family, lives are changed forever. Each assassination was committed by a Russian soldier, commander and Vladimir Putin, whose crimes will not be forgotten.

Updated

Telecoms equipment maker Nokia is pulling out of the Russian market, its CEO told Reuters. The decision will affect about 2,000 workers

While several sectors, including telecoms, have been exempted from some sanctions on humanitarian or related grounds, Nokia said it had decided quitting Russia was the only option.

“We just simply do not see any possibilities to continue in the country under the current circumstances,” chief executive Pekka Lundmark said in an interview.

He added Nokia would continue to support customers during the exit process, and it was not possible to say at this stage how long the withdrawal would take.

Ukraine's deputy PM: nine humanitarian corridors agreed for today

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said nine humanitarian corridors had been agreed to evacuate civilians today. That included from the besieged city of Mariupol – although civilians will have to use private cars.

Reuters reports Vereshchuk said in a statement that five of the nine evacuation corridors were from Ukraine’s Luhansk region in the east of the country, which officials have said is under heavy shelling.

Today so far

  • Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy voiced concerns that Russian forces could use chemical weapons in Ukraine but did not confirm whether they had been used in his daily video address late on Monday. “Today, the occupiers issued a new statement, which testifies to their preparation for a new stage of terror against Ukraine and our defenders,” he said. “One of the mouthpieces of the occupiers stated that they could use chemical weapons against the defenders of Mariupol. We take this as seriously as possible.”
  • Earlier on Monday evening, Ukrainian authorities claimed Russia dropped a drone carrying a toxic substance on the south-eastern city of Mariupol. Ivanna Klympush, a Ukrainian MP and chair of the parliamentary committee on integration of Ukraine to the EU, said the unknown substance was “most likely” chemical weapons. The reports are so far unconfirmed.
  • The Ukrainian Azov Regiment, a unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, accused Russia of using chemical weapons of an “unknown origin”, dropped via an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on civilians in Mariupol. Azov leader Andriy Biletsky told the Kyiv Independent that three people had signs of chemical poisoning but there appears to be no “disastrous consequences” for their health.
  • UK foreign secretary Liz Truss said work was under way to verify details of the alleged attack, adding: “Any use of such weapons would be a callous escalation in this conflict and we will hold Putin and his regime to account.” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby added that he was aware of the reports but “cannot confirm at this time”.
  • Russia’s president Vladimir Putin will meet Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko today to discuss the situation in Ukraine and western sanctions, news agencies in Russia and Belarus reported.
  • More than 10,000 civilians have died in Mariupol, the city’s mayor has said. Vadym Boychenko said the death toll could surpass 20,000, as weeks of attacks and privation leave bodies “carpeted through the streets” in an interview with the Associated Press.
  • Zelenskiy partly blamed the Ukrainian loss of life on western nations that had not sent weapons to bolster the war effort. “Unfortunately, we are not getting as much as we need to end this war sooner,” he said. “Time is being lost. The lives of Ukrainians are being lost … And this is also the responsibility of those who still keep the weapons Ukraine needs in their armoury.”
  • Ukrainian authorities are warning people not to go near what they say are landmines being dropped on Kharkiv. Zelenskiy also spoke of “hundreds of thousands of dangerous objects” including mines and unexploded shells left by Russian forces in regions in Ukraine’s north.
  • The gruesome task of exhuming the bodies of Ukrainian victims from mass graves in Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv started on Monday.
  • More than 6,000 alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine are under investigation, Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office has said.
  • Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion, and the UN has verified the deaths of 142 children, though the number is almost certainly much higher, the UN children’s agency said Monday. That equates to 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children.
  • The United Nations has increasingly heard accounts of rape and sexual violence in Ukraine and called for an investigation into violence against women and increased protection for Ukrainian children. Sima Bahous, UN Women executive director, told the UN security council: “The combination of mass displacement with the large pressure results of conscripts and mercenaries and the brutality displayed against Ukrainian civilians has raised all red flags.”
  • Ukraine’s ombudswoman for human rights said she had recorded horrific acts of sexual violence by Russian troops in Bucha and elsewhere, including a case in which women and girls were kept in a basement for 25 days, the New York Times reported. Nine of those victims are now pregnant, according to the ombudswoman, Lyudmyla Denisova.
  • Three people were killed and eight civilians wounded by Russian strikes in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the region’s governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
  • Ukraine’s eastern city of Kharkiv came under heavy shelling on Monday, resulting in multiple casualties, mayor Ihor Terekhov said. Among the casualties in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was the death of one child, the region’s mayor said.
  • Russian forces are likely to try to take control of the city of Mariupol before entering the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian military said in its latest operational report. The strategy would be part of an anticipated massive onslaught across eastern Ukraine where Russia is believed to be trying to connect occupied Crimea with Moscow-backed separatist territories Donetsk and Lugansk in Donbas.
  • The UK ministry of defence corroborated Ukrainian reports, saying fighting in eastern Ukraine will intensify over the next two to three weeks as Russia continues to refocus its efforts in the region. Western officials previously said they expected Russia to try to “double or perhaps even treble” its forces in Donbas as it shifts forces from Kyiv and elsewhere in the coming weeks.
A bird is seen next to a missile from a previous Russian military attack next to the damaged Kharkiv Regional State Administration building.
A bird is seen next to a missile from a previous Russian military attack next to the damaged Kharkiv regional state administration building. Photograph: Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters

Updated

Here are some of the latest images to come out of Ukraine today as rescue workers continue to clear the debris and work to find civilians trapped by fallen buildings.

Firefighters clear the debris and search for bodies under the rubble of a building hit by a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Firefighters clear the debris and search for bodies under the rubble of a building hit by a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a house in Kharkiv.
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a house in Kharkiv. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP
Residents stand outside their apartments as shops burn after a Russian attack in Kharkiv.
Residents stand outside their apartments as shops burn after a Russian attack in Kharkiv. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP
A resident walks with a bicycle in the heavily damaged neighbourhood of Chernihiv.
A resident walks with a bicycle in the heavily damaged neighbourhood of Chernihiv. Photograph: Celestino Arce Lavin/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock
A block of buildings destroyed after Russian shelling over Chernihiv, Ukraine.
A block of buildings destroyed after Russian shelling over Chernihiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Celestino Arce Lavin/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

More than 6,000 alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine are under investigation, Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office has said.

A total of 6,036 cases have been reported and 186 children have been confirmed to have been killed, the office added.

Updated

Russian troops 'left mines everywhere' as clean-up begins in north

Zelenskiy spoke of “hundreds of thousands of dangerous objects” including mines and unexploded shells left behind by Russian forces in regions of Ukraine’s north.

Security work is under way in the northern regions of our country, from where the occupiers were expelled.

First of all, it is mine clearance. Russian troops left behind tens if not hundreds of thousands of dangerous objects. These are shells that did not explode, mines, tripwire mines. At least several thousand such items are disposed of daily.

The occupiers left mines everywhere. In the houses they seized. Just on the streets, in the fields. They mined people’s property, mined cars, doors.

They consciously did everything to make the return to these areas after de-occupation as dangerous as possible.”

A man looks many tank shells left by the russian army in its withdrawal of Andriivka, village near Kyiv.
A man looks at tank shells left by the Russian army in its withdrawal from Andriivka, a village near Kyiv. Photograph: Celestino Arce Lavin/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Zelenskiy continued to claim that the territory of Ukraine is now “one of the most contaminated by mines in the world” and called for the situation to also be considered as a war crime of Russian troops.

They deliberately did everything to kill or maim as many of our people as possible, even when they were forced to withdraw from our land. Without the appropriate orders, they would not have done it.”

Updated

West investigates chemical weapons claims

UK foreign secretary Liz Truss said Russian forces may have used chemical agents in an attack on the people of Mariupol.

“We are working urgently with partners to verify details,” she said “Any use of such weapons would be a callous escalation in this conflict and we will hold Putin and his regime to account.”

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby has also issued a statement on the unconfirmed reports of a chemical weapons attack in Mariupol.

We are aware of social media reports which claim Russian forces deployed a potential chemical munition in Mariupol, Ukraine. We cannot confirm at this time and will continue to monitor the situation closely.

These reports, if true, are deeply concerning and reflective of concerns that we have had about Russia’s potential to use a variety of riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents, in Ukraine.”

Updated

Fighting in eastern Ukraine to intensify, UK MoD says

Fighting in eastern Ukraine will intensify over the next two to three weeks as Russia continues to refocus its efforts in the region, the UK defence ministry has said.

The latest British intelligence report, released just after 6am GMT, reads:

Fighting in eastern Ukraine will intensify over the next two to three weeks as Russia continues to refocus its efforts there.

Russian attacks remain focused on Ukrainian positions near Donetsk and Luhansk with further fighting around Kherson and Mykolaiv and a renewed push towards Kramatorsk.

Russian forces continue to withdraw from Belarus in order to redeploy in support of operations in eastern Ukraine.”

Zelenskiy warns of 'new stage of terror' amid claims of chemical weapons attack

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy voiced concerns that Russia forces could use chemical weapons in Ukraine but did not confirm whether they had been used in his daily video address late on Monday.

Zelenskiy said Russia claimed its forces could use chemical weapons against the defenders of Mariupol and he was taking the allegations seriously.

Today, the occupiers issued a new statement, which testifies to their preparation for a new stage of terror against Ukraine and our defenders.

One of the mouthpieces of the occupiers stated that they could use chemical weapons against the defenders of Mariupol. We take this as seriously as possible.

“I want to remind the world leaders that the possible use of chemical weapons by the Russian military has already been discussed. And already at that time it meant that it was necessary to react to the Russian aggression much tougher and faster,” he added.

Ukrainian authorities on Monday evening said a Russian drone dropped a toxic substance on the south-eastern city of Mariupol late on Monday night.

Ivanna Klympush, a Ukrainian MP and chair of the parliamentary committee on integration of Ukraine to the EU, said the unknown substance was “most likely” chemical weapons.

Klympush claimed the attack occurred around 10pm local time, writing on Twitter: “This morning Russians threatened to use “chemical troops” against Mariupol’s defenders.”

“Victims experience respiratory failure, vestibulo-atactic syndrome.Most likely chem [chemical] weapons!” she added.

The alarm was first raised by the Ukrainian Azov regiment, a unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, which said chemicals were of an “unknown origin” were dropped via an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on civilians. In a Telegram update, the regiment said:

Russian occupation forces used a poisonous substance of unknown origin against Ukrainian military and civilians in the city of Mariupol, which was dropped from an enemy UAV.

The victims have respiratory failure, vestibulo-atactic syndrome. The consequences of using an unknown substance are being clarified.”

Azov leader Andriy Biletsky told the Kyiv Independent that three people have signs of chemical poisoning but there appears to be no “disastrous consequences” for their health.

Updated

4.8 million Ukrainian children displaced, UN says

Almost 5 million children - two-thirds of all Ukrainian children - have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion, the UN children’s agency has said.

Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s emergency programs director, said having 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children displaced in such a short time is “quite incredible.” He said it is something he hadn’t before seen happen so quickly in 31 years of humanitarian work.

“They have been forced to leave everything behind — their homes, their schools and, often, their family members,” he told the UN Security Council. “I have heard stories of the desperate steps parents are taking to get their children to safety, and children saddened that they are unable to get back to school.”

The agency said it has also verified the deaths of 142 youngsters, though the number is almost certainly much higher.

Ukraine’s UN ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, claimed Russia has taken more than 121,000 children out of Ukraine and reportedly drafted a bill to simplify and accelerate adoption procedures for orphans and even those who have parents and other relatives.

A child waits on the train to Poland at the central train station on Monday, April 11, in Lviv, Ukraine.
A child waits on the train to Poland at the central train station on Monday, April 11, in Lviv, Ukraine. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

More than 10,000 civilians died in Mariupol, mayor says

More than 10,000 civilians have died in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, the city’s mayor has said.

Vadym Boychenko said the death toll could surpass 20,000, as weeks of attacks and a lack of food and supplies have left bodies “carpeted through the streets” in an interview with the Associated Press.

Boychenko also accused Russian forces of having blocked weeks of thwarted humanitarian convoys into the city in an attempt to conceal the carnage there from the outside world.

Mariupol has been hit heavily by Russian attacks and has suffered some of the most brutal assaults of the war.

Graves of civilians killed are seen next to apartment buildings in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine.
Graves of civilians killed are seen next to apartment buildings in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Boychenko gave new details of recent allegations by Ukrainian officials that Russian forces have brought mobile cremation equipment to Mariupol to dispose of the corpses of victims of the siege.

Russian forces have taken many bodies to a huge shopping centre where there are storage facilities and refrigerators, Boychenko said.

“Mobile crematoriums have arrived in the form of trucks: You open it, and there is a pipe inside and these bodies are burned,” he said.

Speaking to South Korean lawmakers via video link on Monday, Zelenskiy said “tens of thousands” of people had probably been killed in Mariupol. No independent verification of the death toll in the besieged south-eastern city is possible, but if a figure of this magnitude is confirmed it would be by far the highest death toll in any Ukrainian town or city since the war began.

Forces defending the besieged port city said their ammunition was running out. “Today will probably be the last battle,” the 36th Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces wrote on social media. “It’s death for some of us and captivity for the rest.”

Residents carry their belongings near buildings destroyed in Mariupol.
Residents carry their belongings near buildings destroyed in Mariupol. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Russia likely to try to take control of Mariupol before entering Donetsk, Ukraine says

Russian forces are likely to try to take control of the city of Mariupol before entering the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian military has said.

The strategy would be part of an anticipated massive onslaught across eastern Ukraine where Russia is believed to be trying to connect occupied Crimea with Moscow-backed separatist territories Donetsk and Lugansk in Donbas.

According to Ukraine’s latest operational report as of 6am this morning, officials believe Russia is attempting to regroup and relocate troops in Belarus and Russia before carrying out an offensive attack in Donetsk.

Ukrainian forces are “surrounded and blocked”, Myhaylo Podolyak, an official from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, tweeted on Monday night.

However, Ukrainian army insisted that “the defence of Mariupol continues” add that Ukrainian soldiers thwarted six Russian attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk in the past 24 hours.

“The connection with the units of the defence forces that heroically hold the city is stable and maintained,” the land forces of Ukraine wrote on Telegram.

Ukrainian tanks move down a street in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday.
Ukrainian tanks move down a street in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Updated

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will meet Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko today to discuss the situation in Ukraine and western sanctions, news agencies in Russia and Belarus reported.

Russia has sent tens of thousands of troops from both Russian and Belarusian territory into Ukraine since its forces invaded Ukraine on 24 February.

Lukashenko has insisted that Belarus must be involved in negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, saying also that Belarus had been unfairly labelled “an accomplice of the aggressor”.

However, the European Union, the United States and others have included Belarus in the sweeping sanctions imposed on Russia.

Lukashenko arrived early on Tuesday in the Amur region in the Russian Far East where he is to meet Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a Russian spaceport, Belarusian Belta news agency reported.

Summary and welcome

Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

I’m Samantha Lock and I will be bringing you all the latest developments as they unfold.

Here is a comprehensive re-cap of where things stand:

  • Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy voiced concerns that Russian forces could use chemical weapons in Ukraine but did not confirm whether they had been used in his daily video address late on Monday. “Today, the occupiers issued a new statement, which testifies to their preparation for a new stage of terror against Ukraine and our defenders,” he said. “One of the mouthpieces of the occupiers stated that they could use chemical weapons against the defenders of Mariupol. We take this as seriously as possible.”
  • Earlier on Monday evening, Ukrainian authorities claimed Russia dropped a drone carrying a toxic substance on the south-eastern city of Mariupol. Ivanna Klympush, a Ukrainian MP and chair of the parliamentary committee on integration of Ukraine to the EU, said the unknown substance was “most likely” chemical weapons. The reports are so far unconfirmed.
  • The Ukrainian Azov Regiment, a unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, accused Russia of using chemical weapons of an “unknown origin”, dropped via an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on civilians in Mariupol. Azov leader Andriy Biletsky told the Kyiv Independent that three people had signs of chemical poisoning but there appears to be no “disastrous consequences” for their health.
  • UK foreign secretary Liz Truss said work was underway to verify details of the alleged attack, adding: “Any use of such weapons would be a callous escalation in this conflict and we will hold Putin and his regime to account.” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby added that he was aware of the reports but “cannot confirm at this time”.
  • More than 10,000 civilians have died in Mariupol, the city’s mayor has said. Vadym Boychenko said the death toll could surpass 20,000, as weeks of attacks and privation leave bodies “carpeted through the streets” in an interview with the Associated Press.
  • Zelenskiy partly blamed the Ukrainian loss of life on western nations that had not sent weapons to bolster the war effort. “Unfortunately, we are not getting as much as we need to end this war sooner,” he said. “Time is being lost. The lives of Ukrainians are being lost … And this is also the responsibility of those who still keep the weapons Ukraine needs in their armoury.”
  • Ukrainian authorities are warning people not to go near what they say are landmines being dropped on Kharkiv. Zelenskiy also spoke of “hundreds of thousands of dangerous objects” including mines and unexploded shells left by Russian forces in regions in Ukraine’s north.
  • The gruesome task of exhuming the bodies of Ukrainian victims from mass graves in Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv started on Monday. More than 5,800 cases of alleged war crimes against Russian forces are under investigation, Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, told CNN.
  • Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion, and the UN has verified the deaths of 142 children, though the number is almost certainly much higher, the UN children’s agency said Monday. That equates to 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children.
  • The United Nations has increasingly heard accounts of rape and sexual violence in Ukraine and called for an investigation into violence against women and increased protection for Ukrainian children. Sima Bahous, UN Women executive director, told the UN security council: “The combination of mass displacement with the large pressure results of conscripts and mercenaries and the brutality displayed against Ukrainian civilians has raised all red flags.”
  • Ukraine’s ombudswoman for human rights said she had recorded horrific acts of sexual violence by Russian troops in Bucha and elsewhere, including a case in which women and girls were kept in a basement for 25 days, the New York Times reported. Nine of those victims are now pregnant, according to the ombudswoman, Lyudmyla Denisova.
  • Three people were killed and eight civilians wounded by Russian strikes in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the region’s governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
  • Ukraine’s eastern city of Kharkiv came under heavy shelling on Monday, resulting in multiple casualties, mayor Ihor Terekhov said. Among the casualties in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was the death of one child, the region’s mayor said.
  • Prominent Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr has been detained in Moscow on charges of disobeying police orders, his lawyer told the independent news outlet Sota Vision on Monday evening.
  • France’s foreign ministry has declared six more Russian agents “operating under diplomatic cover” as persona non grata. The six agents are being accused of working against France’s “national interest” after an investigation, Reuters reports.
  • Russian forces are focusing on the Donbas region, the US Pentagon said, but have not launched an offensive yet. “They’re repositioning, they’re refocusing on the Donbas,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. Western officials said they expected Russia to try to “double or perhaps even treble” its forces in Donbas as it shifts forces from Kyiv and elsewhere in the coming weeks.
  • Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces are readying themselves for a “last battle” to control the besieged southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Ukraine’s armed forces said.
  • The Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, held “direct, open and tough” talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow on Monday. In a statement, Nehammer – the first EU leader to meet with Putin since he ordered his troops to invade Ukraine – was quoted as saying that it was “not a friendly meeting”.
  • Moscow said it will not pause its military operation in Ukraine before the next round of peace talks. In an interview with Russian state television, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said he saw no reason not to continue talks with Ukraine but insisted Moscow would not halt its military operation when the sides convene again.
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a house after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a house after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP
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