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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Martin Farrer, Samantha Lock and Harry Taylor

Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 18 of the Russian invasion

Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets injured soldier
Volodymyr Zelenskiy greets an injured soldier at a military hospital in Kyiv on Sunday. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
  • A Russian airstrike has killed at least 35 people and wounded 134 at a military base in Yavoriv, about 30 miles west of Lviv and less than 10 miles from the Polish border. The attack happened hours after the Kremlin had warned that western supply lines into the embattled country were “legitimate targets”.

  • Brent Renaud, an award-winning US film-maker whose work has appeared in the New York Times and other outlets, has been killed by Russian forces in the town of Irpin, outside Kyiv. Juan Arredondo, a US photographer, was wounded and is in hospital.

  • The Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is running out of its last reserves of food and water, according to its local authority. Earlier on Sunday, the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said a supply convoy was only two hours away from the city, where 400,000 people are stuck.

  • Kyiv has a two-week supply of food in case of a blockade, its local authority has reported.

  • Ukrainian and Russian delegates from peace talks have sounded positive ahead of more negotiations in the next few days. The Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said talks had become more constructive. Leonid Slutsky, a Russian delegate, said there had been significant progress and they hoped to soon arrive at a “joint position”, Reuters reports.

  • Senior Christian figures have called for fighting to stop in Ukraine. Pope Francis said Ukrainians were being massacred and called for the invasion to stop. “In the name of God, let the cry of the suffering people be heard, and let the bombings and attacks stop. In the name of God, I ask you, stop this massacre.”

  • Meanwhile, the Orthodox world’s spiritual leader, Bartholomew I, has called for a ceasefire in Ukraine while praising the nation’s “powerful resistance” against invading Russian forces.

  • More than 14,000 people in 112 cities have been arrested in Russia for anti-war protests since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, according to an independent human rights body in the country.

  • Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman has claimed Russia used banned phosphorus munitions in an attack overnight in Popasna in eastern Ukraine, which would constitute a war crime.

  • India is temporarily relocating its embassy in Ukraine to Poland, its government confirmed.

  • The mayor of a city in southern Ukraine is the latest to have been kidnapped by Russian forces, according to Ukraine’s foreign minister. Dymtro Kuleba said that Yevhen Matveyev from Dniprorudne has been “abducted” by Russian forces.

  • Nine people were killed in airstrikes on the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv. The city is seen as key in any future assault on the port of Odesa, further down the Black Sea coast.

  • The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, says he fears Vladimir Putin could use chemical weapons, and if so that it would be a “game-changer” in the conflict.

  • The UK has now issued more than 3,000 visas to Ukrainian refugees, with the government believing the final number who could end up in Britain could be in the tens of thousands, according to minister Michael Gove.

  • The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has said there is no case for new investments in Russia. In a statement issued alongside a video on Sunday morning, he urged companies to “think very carefully” about their holdings.

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