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The Guardian - AU
World
Samantha Lock (now); Maanvi Singh, Gloria Oladipo, Léonie Chao-Fong , Tom Ambrose and Martin Farrer (earlier)

UN says 75,000 children a day have become refugees - as it happened

Ukraine Russia Kyiv United Kingdom United States Vladimir Putin Volodymyr Zelenksyy European Union Mariupol China

This blog is now closed. Please follow our live coverage here:

Summary

It is day 21 of Russia’s war on its neighbour. Here is where the situation currently stands:

  • Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy gave a late-night national address where he confirmed meetings between Ukrainian and Russian officials continue, adding that “the positions at negotiations are more realistic now”.
  • However, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said there are “fundamental contradictions” in talks aimed at ending Russia’s military attack but there is “certainly room for compromise.”
  • Addressing Russian citizens, Zelenskiy said the war would end in “disgrace, poverty, year-long isolation [and] a brutal repressive system”. “If you stay in your posts, if you don’t speak out against the war, the international community will strip you off of everything you have earned over the years. They are working on it,” he said.
  • EU leaders vowed support for Ukraine during a visit to Kyiv. The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia arrived in the capital earlier on Tuesday in a show of support for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who briefed them on the war with Russia. Poland’s Kaczyński called for a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, with Czech prime minister Petr Fiala saying: “You are not alone. Our countries stand with you. Europe stands with your country”.
  • Nato is set to tell its military commanders on Wednesday to draw up plans for new ways to deter Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, including more troops and missile defences in eastern Europe, officials and diplomats said. Ukrainian minster for defence, Oleksii Reznikov, is expected to plead for more weapons from individual Nato countries, according to a Reuters report.
  • US President Joe Biden is expected to announce an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine on Wednesday, a White House official said as reported by Reuters news agency.
  • The US Senate unanimously passed a resolution late Tuesday night condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, a rare show of unity in the deeply divided Congress.
  • US secretary of state Antony Blinken predicted there will be an independent Ukraine “a lot longer than there’s going to be a Vladimir Putin,” in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.
  • A series of Russian strikes hit a residential neighbourhood in Kyiv on Tuesday morning, igniting a huge fire and prompting a frantic rescue effort in a 15-storey apartment building. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said five people were killed in the airstrikes.
  • Russian forces have reportedly taken patients and medical staff of a hospital in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol hostage. According to the BBC, the city’s deputy mayor Sergei Orlov said there were 400 people in the hospital and the Russian army were “using our patients and doctors like hostages”.
  • About 2,000 cars were able to leave Mariupol, according to local authorities.
  • A woman who interrupted a live news programme on Russian state TV last night to protest against the war in Ukraine has been fined 30,000 roubles (£215) by a Russian court. Marina Ovsyannikova, a Russian television producer, was found guilty of flouting protest legislation, the Russian state news agency RIA reported.
  • The UK is to impose sanctions on 370 more Russian individuals, including more than 50 oligarchs and their families with a combined net worth of £100bn. More than 1,000 individuals and entities have now been targeted with sanctions since the invasion of Ukraine, with fresh measures announced against key Kremlin spokespeople and political allies of Putin, including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.
  • Boris Johnson will visit Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday to ask the Gulf states to produce more oil and help the UK reduce dependence on Russian oil.
  • More than 100,000 people in the UK have offered homes to Ukrainian refugees in the first 24 hours of a government scheme that allows families and individuals to bring them to the UK.

As usual, for any tips and feedback please contact me through Twitter or at samantha.lock@theguardian.com

The Guardian keeps you up to the minute on the crisis in Ukraine with a global perspective and from our team around the world and around the clock. Thank you for reading and please do stay tuned.

• The headline of this blog was amended on 16 March 2022 to make clear that the 75,000 child refugees are not a total, but a daily figure.

Updated

Street scenes in Ukraine show anti-tank hedgehogs scattered across the historical district of Odesa while apartment buildings are seen in ruins from the aftermath of Russian missile attacks in Kyiv.

Sandbags seen lining the entrance to buildings protect infrastructure in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

Anti-tank hedgehogs are pictured at the historical part of Odesa
Anti-tank hedgehogs are pictured at the historical part of Odesa Photograph: Viacheslav Onyshchenko/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock
A man walks past sandbags protecting the entrance of a cafe in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro
A man walks past sandbags protecting the entrance of a cafe in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro Photograph: Emre Caylak/AFP/Getty Images
A family examines the destruction at their apartment building where an intercepted Russian rocket hit in Kyiv
A family examines the destruction at their apartment building where an intercepted Russian rocket hit in Kyiv Photograph: Seth Sidney Berry/ZUMA Press Wire Service/REX/Shutterstock

Here is a look at how some of the UK papers have covered the day’s developments in Ukraine:

On the topic of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, an inquiry into the granting of his Portuguese citizenship has led to the opening of disciplinary proceedings against employees involved in the process, Lusa news agency reported on Tuesday.

The Russian billionaire was granted Portuguese citizenship in April 2021 based on a law offering naturalisation to descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula during the mediaeval Inquisition.

There is little known history of Sephardic Jews in Russia, although Abramovich is a common surname of Ashkenazi Jewish origin.

An inquiry into the granting of Roman Abramovich’s Portuguese citizenship has led to the opening of disciplinary proceedings against employees involved in the process
An inquiry into the granting of Roman Abramovich’s Portuguese citizenship has led to the opening of disciplinary proceedings against employees involved in the process Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters

The inquiry by the Institute of Registries and Notary (IRN), which provides nationality and passport services, was launched in January amid criticism from some activists, commentators and politicians who said the law must be reviewed as they believed it was being used by Russian oligarchs to get a foothold in the EU.

IRN, which did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment, told Lusa that, following the initial investigation, disciplinary proceedings were opened but said details of it were confidential.

It did not say on how many employees were targeted.

A second inquiry into the granting of citizenship to Abramovich was opened in January by the Portuguese prosecutor’s office and his citizenship could be stripped depending on its outcome.

A rabbi responsible for issuing a document needed to obtain citizenship was reportedly arrested last week.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich sat at the top table of English football for nearly two decades after buying Chelsea in 2003. But as David Conn explains, the issues that led to sanctions being imposed on him last week by the government have been in plain view for years

His transformed the club from perennial underachievers to a major force in European football that has since won every major tournament the continent offers. But right from day one, as the Guardian’s investigative reporter David Conn tells Nosheen Iqbal, there have been questions about the origins of his wealth – as well as his closeness to the Kremlin.

Following the invasion of Ukraine, Abramovich was last week placed on a list of individuals to have sanctions imposed upon them by the UK government, meaning that all his assets in Britain were frozen – including Chelsea FC. With the club now in crisis and up for sale, Conn looks back on what the Abramovich era has meant for English football, and why the authorities are only taking action now.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken has predicted there will be an independent Ukraine “a lot longer than there’s going to be a Vladimir Putin,” as the Russian president continues his unprovoked invasion.

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Blinken said:

First of all, there’s going to be a Ukraine, an independent Ukraine a lot longer than there’s going to be Vladimir Putin.

One way or the other, Ukraine will be there and at some point Putin won’t.”

Blinken said the US is trying to prevent as much death and destruction as possible right now.

The real question is how much death and destruction is wrought by Russia’s aggression in the meantime, and that’s what we’re working as hard as we can to limit, to stop, to put an end to the war of choice that Russia is committing.

We’re doing that through the support we’re providing Ukraine every single day. We’re doing that by the pressure we’re exerting against Russia every single day.”

Updated

The Ukrainian military has just released its daily operational report, claiming Russian military leadership has approved the “early release” of cadets to fight in combat against Ukraine.

According to the report released by Ukraine’s ministry of defence, Russia is having trouble providing its troops with ammunition and “has lost (completely destroyed, or lost ammunition) 40% of units involved in operations on the territory of Ukraine”.

“The worst situation remains in the area of Mariupol, where the opponent tries to block the city in the western and eastern outskirts of the city,” military officials from the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine added.

Anti-tank hedgehogs are pictured in the historic port city of Odessa which is under threat of bombardment from Russian forces
Anti-tank hedgehogs are pictured in the historic port city of Odessa which is under threat of bombardment from Russian forces Photograph: Viacheslav Onyshchenko/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

Nato to begin planning for more troops on eastern flank

Nato is set to tell its military commanders on Wednesday to draw up plans for new ways to deter Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, including more troops and missile defences in eastern Europe, officials and diplomats said.

Defence ministers will order the military advice at Nato headquarters, just over a week before allied leaders, including US President Joe Biden, gather in Brussels on 24 March, according to a report from Reuters.

Ministers will also hear from their Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov, who is expected to plead for more weapons from individual Nato countries, as Russian attacks on Ukraine’s cities continue and the Russian military seeks control of Kyiv.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday:

We need to reset our military posture for this new reality.

Ministers will start an important discussion on concrete measures to reinforce our security for the longer term, in all domains.”

While at least 10 of Nato’s biggest allies, including the United States, Britain and France, have deployed more troops, ships and warplanes to its eastern flank, and put more on stand-by, the alliance must still consider how to face up to a new security situation in Europe over the medium term.

Updated

The Ukrainian parliament convened on Tuesday to pass laws on economic innovation and fiscal policy relaxation aimed at saving jobs and allowing Ukrainians to continue working wherever it’s possible, Zelenskiy has confirmed.

We introduced 0% excise duty and 7% VAT on fuel in order to stabilise prices and ensure continuous supplies. The regulation of business has been simplified. We reduced the activity of regulatory bodies so that there were no inspections for businesses that are working within the Ukrainian law and don’t violate consumer rights.

A new law is also giving guarantees to members of the territorial defence and volunteers. They will be recognised as combat veterans. We approved a decision to continue the martial law to effectively defend our country.”

More images of the destruction in Kyiv have emerged.

Ukraine’s state emergency services also published footage of rescue operations, describing 13 fires throughout the city caused by the shelling on Tuesday.

Residential buildings shelled in the Svyatoshyno district of Kyiv, Ukraine
Residential buildings shelled in the Svyatoshyno district of Kyiv, Ukraine Photograph: Ukrinform/News Pictures/REX/Shutterstock
Smoke comes out of the windows in a residential building shelled by the Russian troops
Smoke comes out of the windows in a residential building shelled by the Russian troops Photograph: Ukrinform/News Pictures/REX/Shutterstock

The United Nations has said that since the war in Ukraine started on 24 February, every day 70,000 children in Ukraine have become refugees.

“That is equivalent to 55 children fleeing the country every minute, according to UNICEF — nearly one every second,” said a UN spokesman.

UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told a press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva:

Since February 24, scores of children have been killed in Ukraine. Many more have been injured and more than 1.5 million children have fled the country.

Putting this last statistic another way, on average, every day in Ukraine from the start of the war, more than 75,000 children have become refugees. Every day.

This last number is particularly shocking. Every single minute, 55 children have fled their country.

That is, a Ukrainian child has become a refugee almost every single second since the start of the war.

This refugee crisis is in terms of speed and scale, unprecedented since the Second World War, and is showing no signs of slowing down.”

War will end with 'disgrace, poverty, year-long isolation' for Russians, Zelenskiy says

More from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s late-night national address:

The third week is coming to an end. We all want peace. We all want victory. And there’s a feeling that just a little bit longer and we will achieve what we, Ukrainians, are entitled to by right.

Zelenskiy added that meetings between Ukrainian and Russian officials continue.

Meetings continue. I’m being reported that the positions at negotiations are more realistic now. However, we need more time to make sure that the decision is in the interests of Ukraine.

The president said Russia has lost masses of equipment, soldiers and Russian generals.

Many Russian conscripts have been killed. There are tens of officers among killed invaders, and one more general was killed today. The occupants committed new and apparent war crimes, shelled on peaceful cities, civilian infrastructure.

The number of rockets used by Russia against Ukraine has already exceeded 900. There are so many air bombs that it’s impossible to count them.”

Zelenskiy addressed Russians in his latest video address: “Citizens of Russia, any of you who has had access to truthful information might have already realised how this war will end for your country: with disgrace, poverty, year-long isolation, a brutal repressive system”
Zelenskiy addressed Russians in his latest video address: “Citizens of Russia, any of you who has had access to truthful information might have already realised how this war will end for your country: with disgrace, poverty, year-long isolation, a brutal repressive system” Photograph: Telegram

Addressing Russian citizens, Zelenskiy switched to Russian:

Citizens of Russia, any of you who has had access to truthful information might have already realised how this war will end for your country: with disgrace, poverty, year-long isolation, a brutal repressive system that will treat Russian citizens as inhumanely as you, occupants, treated Ukrainians. What will come next depends on your actions.

I want to address Russian officials and everyone who is involved with the incumbent government. If you stay in your posts, if you don’t speak out against the war, the international community will strip you off of everything you have earned over the years. They are working on it. This includes propaganda, the fourth estate in Russia. If you continue working for propaganda, you put yourself at a bigger risk than you face if you just resign: the risk of sanctions and international tribunal for the propaganda of aggressive war, for justification of war crimes. Quit your jobs. Several months without a job is better than a whole life under international prosecution.”

Zelenskiy continued in Ukrainian:

So everyone, who stands with us, receives gratitude not only from us but from the entire world. Everyone who stands with us has a chance to become a real hero.”

Zelenskiy also thanked Canadians for their support and US President Biden for the new US$ 13.6 billion support package. “We see it as the first step towards the restoration of our country,” he added.

The president remained optimistic that on Wednesday there will be a long-awaited evacuation of people from Izyum in Kharkiv region.

“A humanitarian corridor has been agreed on. In the past 24 hours, we managed to evacuate 28,893 Ukrainian from Sumy, Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. Out of them, 20,000 were able to leave Mariupol, for now, on their private cars.”

“Ukrainian humanitarian aid is being blocked by the Russian soldiers en route to the city. But we won’t give up on trying to save our people and our city.”

Updated

US President Joe Biden is expected to announce an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine on Wednesday, a White House official said as reported by Reuters news agency.

The administration last week announced $200 million in security aid for Ukraine bringing he total available funds approved during Biden’s presidency to $2 billion.

We will have more on this story as it develops.

Updated

The US Senate has unanimously passed a resolution condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, a rare show of unity in the deeply divided Congress.

The resolution, introduced by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and backed by senators of both parties, encouraged the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and other nations to target the Russian military in any investigation of war crimes committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Reuters quotes Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a speech on the Senate floor ahead of the vote:

All of us in this chamber joined together, with Democrats and Republicans, to say that Vladimir Putin cannot escape accountability for the atrocities committed against the Ukrainian people.”

The US Senate has unanimously passed a resolution condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal
The US Senate has unanimously passed a resolution condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal Photograph: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Updated

'You are not alone': Czechia, Poland and Slovenia deliver message of support

The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia arrived in Kyiv earlier on Tuesday in a show of support for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who briefed them on the war with Russia.

Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki and deputy prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński, their Czech counterpart Petr Fiala and Slovenia’s Janez Janša made the perilous train journey to Kyiv which is close to being encircled by Russian forces. They are the first western visitors to the city since the war began three weeks ago.

Poland’s Kaczyński called for a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine. The EU leaders thanked the Ukrainians for defending “fundamental European values” and sent a message of reassurance, with Fiala saying: “You are not alone. Our countries stand with you. Europe stands with your country”.

Zelenskiy expressed gratitude for their visit, calling it a “powerful testimony of support” and telling reporters:“with allies like this we will win this war”.

Updated

Ukraine says ‘fundamental contradictions’ but 'room for compromise' in talks with Russia

There are “fundamental contradictions” in talks aimed at ending Russia’s military attack on Ukraine but compromise is possible, a member of the Ukrainian delegation and presidential aide has said.

Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted late Tuesday night:

We’ll continue tomorrow. A very difficult and viscous negotiation process. There are fundamental contradictions. But there is certainly room for compromise.”

Talks resumed Tuesday, with both sides having signalled progress.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the Russians “have already begun to understand that they will not achieve anything by war” and called Monday’s talks “pretty good”.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday at a press conference that “talks are now continuing on giving Ukraine neutral military status, in the context of security guarantees for all participants in this process”, as well as on “demilitarising Ukraine”, the Interfax news agency reported.

Lavrov is set to meet his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Moscow on Wednesday to discuss the Ukraine conflict, the Russian ministry said.

Updated

The aftermath of Russian missile strikes at residential districts in Kyiv can be seen in the photos below.

Russian troops intensified their attacks on the Ukrainian capital with a series of powerful explosions rocking residential districts on Tuesday.

Ukrainian police inspect the site of a Russian bombing attack in front of a destroyed apartment building in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday 15 March
Ukrainian police inspect the site of a Russian bombing attack in front of a destroyed apartment building in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday 15 March Photograph: Vladyslav Musiienko/UPI/REX/Shutterstock
Damage to an apartment complex is seen after the apartment complex was struck by artillery shells in Kyiv, Ukraine
Damage to an apartment complex is seen after the apartment complex was struck by artillery shells in Kyiv, Ukraine Photograph: Vladyslav Musiienko/UPI/REX/Shutterstock
People clear debris at the site of a missile strike at an apartment building in Kyiv, Ukraine
People clear debris at the site of a missile strike at an apartment building in Kyiv, Ukraine Photograph: Vladyslav Musiienko/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

In a national address just before 2am local time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has provided a more optimistic view of the positions of Ukraine and Russia at upcoming peace talks.

Meetings continue. I am told that the positions at the negotiations sound more realistic.

However, more time is still needed for decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine.”

Hello it’s Samantha lock back with as my colleague Mannvi Singh signs off for the day.

It is day 21 of the war in Ukraine. As usual, for any tips and feedback please contact me through Twitter or at samantha.lock@theguardian.com

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has given a late-night national address inviting all friends of Ukraine to visit Kyiv.

It can be dangerous here, because our sky is not yet closed from Russian missiles and planes. The decision to strengthen our arsenal in the air has not yet been approved. We did not get any planes. But the views of all the people of the world are now focused on our capital, on Ukrainians.

So everyone who is with us will be appreciated. Not only ours, but also other nations.”

Updated

Daniel Boffey and Jennifer Rankin in Brussels:

During a press conference in Kyiv alongside Zelenskiy, the leader of Poland’s ruling party said an international peacekeeping mission should be sent to operate in Ukraine.

“I think that it is necessary to have a peace mission - Nato, possibly some wider international structure - but a mission that will be able to defend itself, which will operate on Ukrainian territory,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski said during the conference, which was broadcast on Polish television.

“It will be a mission that will strive for peace, to give humanitarian aid, but at the same time it will also be protected by appropriate forces, armed forces,” said Kaczynski, who is seen as the main decision-maker in Poland.

Catch up

It is 1:30am in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand now:

  • A series of Russian strikes hit a residential neighbourhood in the capital on Tuesday morning, igniting a huge fire and prompting a frantic rescue effort in a 15-storey apartment building. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said five people were killed in the airstrikes.
  • About 2,000 cars were able to leave the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to local authorities. Officials said a further 2,000 cars were waiting to leave the city. Deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said a convoy with supplies was stuck at nearby Berdyansk. There are reports that Russian forces have taken patients and medical staff of a hospital in Mariupol as hostages.
  • More than 100 buses carrying civilians have left the besieged city of Sumy in north-east Ukraine for a safe area, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. The evacuation consists of two separate convoys headed towards Poltava, in central Ukraine, ICRC spokesperson Jason Straziuso told Reuters.
  • Talks between Russia and Ukraine resumed this afternoon, Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said. On Monday, Podolyak said negotiations had taken a “technical pause” until Tuesday for “additional work in the working subgroups and clarification of individual definitions”.
  • The US president, Joe Biden, will attend an EU summit in Brussels next week, an EU official said, according to AFP.
  • Nearly 100 children have died in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskiy said in a virtual address to Canadian lawmakers. Zelenskiy pleaded for Canada and its allies to do more to stop the Russian invasion of his country, including establishing a no-fly zone as civilian casualties mount.
  • A woman who interrupted a live news programme on Russian state TV last night to protest against the war in Ukraine has been fined 30,000 roubles (£215) by a Russian court. Marina Ovsyannikova, a Russian television producer, was found guilty of flouting protest legislation, the Russian state news agency RIA reported.
  • Russian prosecutors have asked a court to move jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to a maximum security prison after requesting that he serve 13 years in prison on new fraud charges, AFP reported. Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic in Russia, was jailed last year for parole violations related to charges he says were trumped up.
  • The UK is to impose sanctions on 370 more Russian individuals, including more than 50 oligarchs and their families with a combined net worth of £100bn. More than 1,000 individuals and entities have now been targeted with sanctions since the invasion of Ukraine, with fresh measures announced against key Kremlin spokespeople and political allies of Putin, including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.
  • Boris Johnson will be visting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday to ask the Gulf states to produce more oil and help the UK reduce dependence on Russian oil. The move sparked protests, following news that Saudi Arabia had executed 81 people just days earlier.
  • More than 100,000 people have offered homes to Ukrainian refugees in the first 24 hours of a government scheme that allows families and individuals to bring them to the UK. The website for registering interest in the scheme crashed for a short while because of the numbers offering help.
  • Zelenskiy told reporters “with allies like this we will win this war” after the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia made a perilous train journey to Kyiv to offer their support. The comments from Ukraine’s president followed an extraordinary meeting with the three EU leaders in a capital which is close to being encircled by Russian forces. They are the first western visitors to Kyiv since the war began two weeks ago.
  • During a press conference in Kyiv alongside Zelenskiy, the leader of Poland’s ruling party said an international peacekeeping mission should be sent to operate in Ukraine.“I think that it is necessary to have a peace mission - Nato, possibly some wider international structure - but a mission that will be able to defend itself, which will operate on Ukrainian territory,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski said.

– Guardian staff

Updated

WSJ reports:

President Biden is expected to announce more than $1b in new military assistance to the Ukraine government as early as Wednesday, according to U.S. officials, as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is expected to make a plea to Congress for more aid to defend his country.

The $1.01b is expected to include more of the same kinds of military equipment the U.S. says the Ukrainians need the most: antiarmor and antiair systems, including portable air defenses such as Javelins and Stingers. The money would come from the roughly $13.6 billion allotted for Ukraine in the omnibus budget bill Biden signed Tuesday.

While the White House is considering sending more troops to Europe to add to the roughly 15,000 deployed there since the Russia-Ukraine crisis began, Mr. Biden isn’t expected to deploy more troops now, U.S. officials said.

“We’re moving urgently to further augment the support to the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their country,” Biden said Tuesday, without providing additional details. “And I’ll have much more to say about this tomorrow about exactly what we’re doing in Ukraine.”

Boris Johnson will be visting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday to ask the Gulf states to produce more oil and help the UK reduce dependence on Russian oil.

The AP reports:

In a statement released by his office Tuesday, Johnson called Saudi Arabia and the UAE “key international partners” in his bid to wean the West off Russian oil and gas, improve energy security and coordinate action against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The controversial visit has sparked an outcry of protest from UK lawmakers and rights groups, coming just days after Saudi Arabia said it executed 81 people in the largest known mass execution in the kingdom’s modern history.

Johnson planned to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in the United Arab Emirates, then travel to Saudi Arabia for a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He is expected to talk about increasing Gulf energy supplies as well as discuss international coordination in dialing up diplomatic and economic pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The UK is building an international coalition to deal with the new reality we face. The world must wean itself off Russian hydrocarbons and starve Putin’s addiction to oil and gas,” Johnson said in the statement. “Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are key international partners in that effort.”

Daniel Boffey and Jennifer Rankin in Brussels report:

Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters “with allies like this we will win this war” after the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia made a perilous train journey to Kyiv to offer their support.

The comments from Ukraine’s president followed an extraordinary meeting with the three EU leaders in a capital which is close to being encircled by Russian forces. They are the first western visitors to Kyiv since the war began two weeks ago.

In footage of the meeting posted on social media, Zelenskiy was heard briefing the EU leaders on the latest military and humanitarian situation and the negotiations with Russia.

“They are shelling everywhere,” Zelenskiy is heard telling them. “Not only Kyiv but also the western areas.”

He also informed the Czech, Polish and Slovenian prime ministers, Petr Fiala, Mateusz Morawiecki and Janez Janša, that three Chechen brigades had been identified among the Russian forces.

Zelenskiy expressed gratitude for their visit, calling it a “powerful testimony of support”.

On arrival in Kyiv, after a three-hour journey, a photograph of the three men, and Poland’s deputy prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński who had accompanied the leaders, was published of them studying a map of Ukraine in a wood-panelled room in an undisclosed location.

Morawiecki tweeted: “It is here, in war-torn Kyiv, that history is being made. It is here, that freedom fights against the world of tyranny. It is here that the future of us all hangs in the balance. EU supports Ukraine, which can count on the help of its friends – we brought this message to Kyiv today.”

Fiala tweeted: “The aim of the visit is to express the European Union’s unequivocal support for Ukraine and its freedom and independence.

“At the same time, we will present a broad package of support for Ukraine and its citizens during the visit. The international community has also been informed of this visit by international organisations, including the United Nations.”

In statements from their respective capitals ahead of the meeting with Zelenskiy, it was said that they would be offering their support to Ukraine’s president as representatives of the other 24 EU heads of state and government.

Janša tweeted: “Europe must guarantee Ukraine’s independence and ensure that it is ready to help in Ukraine’s reconstruction.”

Read more:

‘They draw bombs, tanks and wishes for peace’: Ukraine’s child mental health crisis

Two days after Russian forces entered Ukraine, on 26 February, the country’s public military administration requested that a psychological support system be put in place at Lviv train station.

Thousands of women and children were passing through the station, 80km (50 miles) from the border with Poland, and the need for doctors and psychiatrists to support the displaced was immediately clear.

“The first week was very difficult,” says Dr Orest Suvalo, psychiatrist and coordinator of the support centre. “There were people arriving from Kyiv and Kharkiv who showed critical signs of distress. Many children, but also adults, were panicking, looking for shelters and buses to Poland.’’

Mental health workers and doctors in Lviv report that thousands of Ukrainian refugee children displaced by the war are showing severe symptoms of trauma. “I have seen children here with catatonic symptoms, where they kind of freeze and don’t react to any outside stimulation,” says Dr Viktor Balandin, psychologist for the Ukrainian NGO Osonnya. “Many of them have stopped speaking, others cannot move their hands or fingers. They just freeze.”

Since the Russian invasion began, millions of Ukrainian children have had to abandon their schools, toys and games. They have been forced to leave their bedrooms to move into bomb shelters, basements and refugee facilities. The war has also killed their peers; according to Ukraine’s general prosecutor, 90 children have died so far.

The trauma of the conflict runs deep for young people who are displaced, with many, if not most of them, bearing the psychological scars of terror.

Mental health doctors in Ukraine say the sudden absence of fathers, forced to remain in the country after the government applied martial law banning men aged 18-60 from leaving, has also had a significant impact on children’s lives.

Read more:

Ten percent of the world’s wheat comes from Ukraine - will war change that?

As the world watches oil and gas prices soar – the next big shock could hit the dinner table. Collectively, Russia and Ukraine are responsible for more than a quarter of global wheat exports and for around 80% of the world’s supply of sunflower oil. Russia — along with ally, Belarus — is also a huge source of fertiliser, accounting for around 15% globally.

The war in Ukraine will undoubtedly have a major impact on its agricultural production and exports, putting even more pressure on a system already in crisis. Madeleine Finlay speaks to food policy researcher, Dr Joseph Glauber, about what the war will mean for the supply and cost of food around the world

Listen:

A Kharkiv resident reached out to the Guardian’s Luke Harding today about damage that his office sustained from a Russia missile and share his thoughts on Russia’s invasion:

Kharkiv resident Oleksandr Sokil, who is 52, says the holes in the front door are caused by cluster munitions dropped by Moscow on residential areas. “The tactic is to kill as many Ukrainian civilians as possible,” Sokil told the Guardian.

The Russian army has pulverised Kharkiv since Vladimir Putin’s February 24 invasion, following a failed attempt to capture the city, Ukraine’s second biggest.

Photos provided by a resident of Kharkiv.
Photos provided by a resident of Kharkiv. Photograph: Handout
Photos provided by a resident of Kharkiv.
Photos provided by a resident of Kharkiv. Photograph: Handout
Photos provided by a resident of Kharkiv.
Photos provided by a resident of Kharkiv. Photograph: Handout

Updated

Video has been posted to social media of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy meeting with the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia today amid Russia’s war on Ukraine.

From journalist Hanna Liubakova:

#Ukraine In Kyiv, President @ZelenskyyUa met with the prime ministers of Poland, Czechia and Slovenia. This is an important gesture of solidarity and support from foreign leaders

Here is more information on the two Fox News journalists, Oleksandra Kuvshynova and Pierre Zakrzewsk, whose deaths were confirmed in Ukraine today from the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison in Odesa, Martin Pengelly and Richard Luscombe:

Two Fox News journalists – producer Oleksandra Kuvshynova and cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski – were killed in the attack outside Kyiv which injured correspondent Benjamin Hall, the US network and its journalists confirmed on Tuesday.

Fox News in a statement only announced the death of Zakrzewski, an Irish citizen. Ukrainian officials and Fox News reporters confirmed that Kuvshynova was also killed in the attack.

“RIP Pierre and Sasha,” the Fox News Pentagon correspondent, Lucas Tomlinson, wrote on Twitter, using a diminutive name for the producer, and sharing a recent picture of the two, smiling with Hall.

Zakrzewski, 55, and Kuvshynova, 24, died “as a result of artillery shelling by Russian troops in the north-eastern part of the village of Gorenka”, Ukrainian website kp.ua said.

The news follows the death in Ukraine on Sunday of Brent Renaud, an American film-maker, who was shot in an area near where the Fox journalists were attacked.

Fox News had announced Hall’s injury on Monday, the reporter “was injured while newsgathering outside of Kyiv in Ukraine”.

Read the full article here.

The US will be giving Ukraine over $186mn in additional aid to support refugees fleeing the country and displaced within Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion, said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, reports Reuters.

More from Blinken following his meeting earlier today with Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba:

Spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister @DmytroKuleba today. I reaffirmed the United States’ continued support for the Ukrainian people and commitment to hold Putin accountable for his unwarranted and inhumane bombardment of Ukraine. #UnitedWithUkraine

A second Fox News journalist, Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, was also killed in Ukraine during the same attack that killed Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewsk and left Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall wounded, confirmed the network today.

Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott informed Fox News staff today, writing:

In our effort to keep you updated on yesterday’s tragic events, we wanted to report that journalist Oleksandra ‘Sasha’ Kuvshynova was also killed alongside our cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire yesterday while in the field with Benjamin Hall...

Sasha was just 24 years old and was serving as a consultant for us in Ukraine. She was helping our crews navigate Kyiv and the surrounding area while gathering information and speaking to sources. She was incredibly talented and spent weeks working directly with our entire team there, operating around the clock to make sure the world knew what was happening in her country.

Our team in Ukraine tells me that Sasha had a passion for music, the arts and photography and was a joy to work with. Several of our correspondents and producers spent long days with her reporting the news and got to know her personally, describing her as hard-working, funny, kind and brave.

Her dream was to connect people around the world and tell their stories and she fulfilled that through her journalism...We held off on delivering this devastating news earlier today out of respect for her family whom we have been in touch with throughout and we extend our deepest condolences to them.

MPs from across the continent have voted to expel Russia from the Council of Europe over the invasion of Ukraine in a further sign of the Kremlin’s estrangement from the western democratic order.

The vote has huge symbolic value, although is also something of a formality, after Russia announced earlier on Tuesday that it was quitting Europe’s leading human rights organisation, effectively jumping before it was pushed.

MPs from the Council of Europe’s 46 other member countries voted for a resolution that said: “In the common European home, there is no place for an aggressor”.

Russia’s withdrawal from the organisation, created in the ashes of world war two to protect peace and human rights, is a highly symbolic moment. The Council of Europe, which Russia joined in 1996, devised the European Convention on Human Rights and played a role in promoting democracy in central and eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Russia’s withdrawal means it will no longer be party to the convention on human rights or subject to judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. Russian citizens and human rights activists will be denied the protection of the court, although Moscow often ignored the judgements.

As MPs from across the continent denounced Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine during a debate in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe urged Russia in a tweet to release opposition leader Alexei Navalny and fulfil a judgment from the court of human rights.

In a draft version of the text MPs voted on, the Council said:

The Assembly deplores that, despite the many appeals to cease the hostilities and to comply with international law, the Russian leadership has persisted in its aggression, escalating the violence in Ukraine and making threats should other States interfere. Through its attitude and actions, the leadership of the Russian Federation poses an open menace to security in Europe.

After the Russian government submitted a formal letter of withdrawal, Leonid Slutsky, head of the International Affairs Committee of Russia’s lower house of parliament, accused the Council of “Russophobic hysteria” and claimed it had become a satellite of Nato and Washington. Writing on his Telegram Channel, he said Russia would “need to denounce” the European Convention on Human Rights, adding: “But don’t be afraid. All rights will be guaranteed in our country, necessarily and unconditionally.”

For many civilians in Ukraine, continued shelling during Russia’s ongoing invasion has completely destroyed apartment buildings and other residences, forcing many to flee.

Here’s reporting from the Guardian about residents in Kyiv’s Podil district:

Residents in Kyiv’s northern Podil district came home to destroyed flats after a 5am blast on Tuesday morning hit Ukraine’s capital.

Daria Kloichko’s flat was strewn with glass and most of her family’s personal items were destroyed. A refugee from the 2014 war in eastern Ukraine against Russian proxy forces, she and her husband hugged and cried seeing the damage.

She and other residents told the Guardian that they had heard an uptick in shelling between the two sides over the past two days as Kyiv has announced a 48 hour curfew after attacks on residential areas in the north-west and east of the city

Updated

Around 29,000 people were evacuated from multiple Ukrainian cities using humanitarian corridors today, with a majority fleeing Mariupol, reported Reuters.

A total of around 29,000 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Tuesday, most of them leaving the besieged port of Mariupol, said a senior government official.

Senior Ukrainian presidential official Kyrylo Tymoshenko said in an online post that about 20,000 people had left Mariupol in private cars. Ukraine earlier accused Russia of blocking a convoy trying to take supplies to the city.

The US Pentagon released more updates on the war in Ukraine today as the US defence secretary, Lloyd J Austin III, and his team travel to the Nato headquarters in Europe.

From the Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe:

Updated

Russia is launching airstrikes against civilian targets “with increasing frequency” in Kyiv, according to a US senior defence official.

From Foreign Policy’s national security reporter Jack Detsch:

NEW: Russia is striking civilian targets in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv “with increasing frequency”: senior U.S. defense official.

Russian forces are still about 10 miles to the northwest of the city and about 12 miles to the east, officials said.

Updated

US president Joe Biden just signed a funding bill that will provide a record $13.6bn in aid to Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion, tweeted Biden recently.

From Biden’s twitter account:

I just signed the Bipartisan Government Funding Bill into law — keeping the government open and providing a historic $13.6 billion in funding to Ukraine.

Updated

Summary

It is 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand now:

  • Russian forces have taken patients and medical staff of a hospital in Mariupol as hostages, local officials said. Around 400 people are understood to be at the regional intensive care hospital, according to Mariupol’s deputy mayor. Sergei Orlov. Officials also claimed Russian troops were forcing residents in nearby buildings out of their homes and into the hospital.
  • A series of Russian strikes hit a residential neighbourhood in the capital on Tuesday morning, igniting a huge fire and prompting a frantic rescue effort in a 15-storey apartment building. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said five people were killed in the airstrikes.
  • More than 3 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, according to the United Nations. According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), 3,000,381 people have left the country since 24 February, a total it expects to rise to at least 4 million.
  • The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia are scheduled to meet with Ukraine’s president Vlodomyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv this evening. The three premiers travelled to the Ukrainian capital by train today in a show of solidarity with Ukraine, Reuters reports.
  • About 2,000 cars were able to leave the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to local authorities. Officials said a further 2,000 cars were waiting to leave the city. Deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said a convoy with supplies was stuck at nearby Berdyansk.
  • More than 100 buses carrying civilians have left the besieged city of Sumy in north-east Ukraine for a safe area, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. The evacuation consists of two separate convoys headed towards Poltava, in central Ukraine, ICRC spokesperson Jason Straziuso told Reuters.
  • Talks between Russia and Ukraine resumed this afternoon, Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said. On Monday, Podolyak said negotiations had taken a “technical pause” until Tuesday for “additional work in the working subgroups and clarification of individual definitions”.
  • The US president, Joe Biden, will travel to Brussels next week to meet the leaders of the Nato alliance and the European Commission. The White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden would attend the Nato summit on 24 March to discuss ongoing deterrence and defence efforts related to Russia’s invasion and reaffirm the United States’s “ironclad commitment” to the alliance.
  • Nearly 100 children have died in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskiy said in a virtual address to Canadian lawmakers. Zelenskiy pleaded for Canada and its allies to do more to stop the Russian invasion of his country, including establishing a no-fly zone as civilian casualties mount.
  • A woman who interrupted a live news programme on Russian state TV last night to protest against the war in Ukraine has been fined 30,000 roubles (£215) by a Russian court. Marina Ovsyannikova, a Russian television producer, was found guilty of flouting protest legislation, the Russian state news agency RIA reported.
  • Russian prosecutors have asked a court to move jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to a maximum security prison after requesting that he serve 13 years in prison on new fraud charges, AFP reported. Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic in Russia, was jailed last year for parole violations related to charges he says were trumped up.
  • The UK is to impose sanctions on 370 more Russian individuals, including more than 50 oligarchs and their families with a combined net worth of £100bn. More than 1,000 individuals and entities have now been targeted with sanctions since the invasion of Ukraine, with fresh measures announced against key Kremlin spokespeople and political allies of Putin, including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.
  • More than 100,000 people have offered homes to Ukrainian refugees in the first 24 hours of a government scheme that allows families and individuals to bring them to the UK. The website for registering interest in the scheme crashed for a short while because of the numbers offering help.

That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, for today as I hand over the blog to my colleague, Gloria Oladipo, who will continue to bring you all the latest developments on the Ukraine-Russia war. See you again tomorrow.

Updated

Russia will withdraw from the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights watchdog, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement today.

The statement reads:

The states of Nato and the European Union, abusing their majority in the Council of Europe (CE), are consistently turning this organization into an instrument of anti-Russian policy, refusing equal dialogue and all the principles on which this pan-European structure was created.

The Council of Europe, whose brief is to uphold human rights and the rule of law and is separate from the European Union, had suspended Russia’s membership on 25 February, the day after it invaded Ukraine, Reuters reports.

On Monday, the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, urged the council to expel Russia, telling the assembly that those responsible for “this unprovoked and unjustified aggression cannot stay in the single European family where human life is the highest value”.

Updated

More than 600 buildings have been destroyed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the city’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said.

In a televised interview today, Terekhov said:

Schools, nurseries, hospitals, clinics have been destroyed. The Russian army is constantly shelling (us) from the ground and the air.

Rescuers remove debris from a residential building damaged by an airstrike in Kharkiv.
Rescuers remove debris from a residential building damaged by an airstrike in Kharkiv. Photograph: Reuters
A man stands next to a Foxtrot store that was destroyed by shelling in Kharkiv
A man stands next to a Foxtrot store that was destroyed by shelling in Kharkiv Photograph: Reuters
A hole in the roof of a tram is seen at a depot in Kharkiv
A hole in the roof of a tram is seen at a depot in Kharkiv Photograph: Reuters

Updated

Here’s more on the reports that patients and staff at a hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol have been taken hostage by Russian troops, according to local officials.

Around 400 people are understood to be at the regional intensive care hospital, according to Mariupol’s deputy mayor Sergei Orlov.

Orlov described the hospital as “our biggest hospital” and said Russian forces were “using patients and doctors like hostages”.

He told the BBC:

We received information that the Russian army captured our biggest hospital … and they’re using our patients and doctors like hostages.

We can confirm this information and also the governor of Donetsk region has confirmed this confirmation. We received information that there are 400 people there.

Local officials also claimed Russian troops were forcing residents in nearby buildings out of their homes and into the hospital.

Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said a hospital worker had managed to alert the authorities about the situation.

The hospital employee was cited as saying that hundreds of people from nearby houses were forcibly moved into the hospital.

The Russians forced 400 people from neighbouring houses to come to our hospital. We can’t leave.

Updated

Russia’s foreign ministry said the US president, Joe Biden, and a dozen other top officials have been banned from entering the country in a reciprocal response to US sanctions.

In a statement, it said the measure, which also applies to the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, “is the consequence of the extremely Russophobic policy pursued by the current US administration”.

Also on the list are the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the Central Intelligence Agency director, William Burns, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

The ministry warned Moscow would soon announce additional sanctions against a range of “Russophobic” US officials, military officers, lawmakers, businessmen and media personalities.

Updated

The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia are scheduled to meet with Ukraine’s president Vlodomyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv this evening.

The three premiers travelled to the Ukrainian capital by train today in a show of solidarity with Ukraine, Reuters reports.

Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, posted pictures of him with the Czech Republic’s PM, Petr Fiala, and Slovenian PM, Janez Janša, in Kyiv, where “history is being made”.

Updated

A man holding his shopping bags stops for a moment to inspect the damage to the Artem building caused by what authorities said is Russian bombardment in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 15, 2022.
A man holding his shopping bags stops for a moment to inspect the damage to the Artem building caused by what authorities said is Russian bombardment in Kyiv. Photograph: Marcus Yam/LA Times/Rex/Shutterstock
Local residents carry bags out and get to safety after the apartment building behind them was damaged by what Kyiv officials said was a Russian bombardment in the Obolon neighbourhood of Kyiv.
Local residents carry bags out and get to safety after the apartment building behind them was damaged by what Kyiv officials said was a Russian bombardment in the Obolon neighbourhood of Kyiv. Photograph: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

The Italian army issued an order for its territorial units to boost training “oriented towards warfighting” referring to the “well-known” international events, Lorenzo Tondo reports.

The order, released in a note and dated 9 March, cites also the “need to maintain the highest levels of efficiency of all tracked vehicles, helicopters and artillery systems”.

The army said the note was intended only for internal use, Italy’s news agency Ansa reported.

Updated

Here’s more on the US president, Joe Biden, travelling to Brussels next week to meet the leaders of the Nato alliance and the European Commission.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced the travel plans at today’s press briefing.

She said the US president would attend the Nato summit on 24 March to discuss ongoing deterrence and defence efforts related to Russia’s invasion and reaffirm the United States’s “ironclad commitment” to the alliance.

Psaki told reporters:

I expect he will share more of those details in the next 24 hours.

Biden will also join a previously scheduled EU council summit to discuss Ukraine, including efforts to penalise Russia and provide humanitarian support to Ukraine, she added.

Updated

More than 3m people have fled Ukraine since Russian invasion began, the UN says

More than 3 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, according to the United Nations, Lizzy Davies reports.

According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), 3,000,381 people have left the country since 24 February, a total it expects to rise to at least 4 million.

The number of people displaced within Ukraine is estimated at 1.85m, the UN said last week – a number that could reach nearly 7 million in coming months.

Updated

Nearly 2 million refugees have fled Ukraine to Poland, where a massive humanitarian aid effort is under way. But some people are going the other way, returning to Ukraine with aid, to collect family members or to fight.

We spent a day meeting those queueing to cross back into Ukraine, unsure what they will find there.

Russians will be banned from importing many designer clothes, jewellery, handbags and racing horses from Europe, under the latest round of EU sanctions, Jennifer Rankin reports.

The EU is banning the export of most luxury goods to Russia, including precious stones, watches, horses, caviar and fur. Such restrictions apply only to a handful of countries, such as North Korea and Syria, highlighting Russia’s deepening isolation from the global economy.

EU officials said the ban on luxury goods was designed to target wealthy, well-connected Russians, rather than ordinary citizens. All items under €300 are excluded and there are varying thresholds for different categories of goods, for example cars under €50,000 are excluded.

The measures were announced as part of the EU’s fourth round of Russia sanctions, which also includes personal sanctions on billionaire Roman Abramovich and the head of Russia’s TV Channel One, Konstantin Ernst.

The EU is also banning Russian steel imports, denying Moscow revenues from a product category worth €3.3bn in 2021. However, some of Europe’s big industrial producers, including Germany and Italy, successfully won exemptions, so the ban will not include iron ore, palladium and nickel. The steel import ban will only take effect after three months to allow existing contracts to be concluded, whereas the luxury goods ban comes into force almost immediately.

Poland and the Baltic States had battled to close down these exemptions, but lost out to a group of more conservative member states, including Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria, according to diplomatic sources. “The ‘sanctionistas’, Poland and the Balts, are afraid the others are missing the sense of urgency, especially as rockets are landing near their borders,” one EU diplomat said.

The EU also chose to exclude nuclear from a ban on all new investments in Russia’s energy sector. In the wake of the downing of MH17 in July 2014, the EU banned investment by EU firms into Russian Arctic oil fields, a measure that is now being extended to all new fossil fuel investments and other forms of financial support. The ban will not apply to nuclear power, as several eastern European countries operate Russian-built nuclear reactors and the technology is used in medicine. There is also a carve out to protect investments to bring oil and gas into the EU.

EU officials hailed a decision, agreed with the United States, to prohibit ratings agencies from reassessing Russia’s creditworthiness. Big ratings agencies, including Moody’s and Fitch, have slashed Russia’s rating to junk status, as they fear the ensuing recession will trigger a default on state debts. EU officials said the decision to ban new ratings of Russia and Russian companies was important because it would freeze existing junk status in global markets. “So there would be no new ratings, if there would be a recovery in future,” an EU official said.

Updated

Summary

It is 7.15pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand now:

  • A series of Russian strikes hit a residential neighbourhood in the capital on Tuesday morning, igniting a huge fire and prompting a frantic rescue effort in a 15-storey apartment building. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said five people were killed in the airstrikes.
  • About 2,000 cars were able to leave the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to local authorities. Officials said a further 2,000 cars were waiting to leave the city. Deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said a convoy with supplies was stuck at nearby Berdyansk. There are reports that Russian forces have taken patients and medical staff of a hospital in Mariupol as hostages.
  • More than 100 buses carrying civilians have left the besieged city of Sumy in north-east Ukraine for a safe area, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. The evacuation consists of two separate convoys headed towards Poltava, in central Ukraine, ICRC spokesperson Jason Straziuso told Reuters.
  • Talks between Russia and Ukraine resumed this afternoon, Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said. On Monday, Podolyak said negotiations had taken a “technical pause” until Tuesday for “additional work in the working subgroups and clarification of individual definitions”.
  • The US president, Joe Biden, will attend an EU summit in Brussels next week, an EU official said, according to AFP.
  • Nearly 100 children have died in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskiy said in a virtual address to Canadian lawmakers. Zelenskiy pleaded for Canada and its allies to do more to stop the Russian invasion of his country, including establishing a no-fly zone as civilian casualties mount.
  • A woman who interrupted a live news programme on Russian state TV last night to protest against the war in Ukraine has been fined 30,000 roubles (£215) by a Russian court. Marina Ovsyannikova, a Russian television producer, was found guilty of flouting protest legislation, the Russian state news agency RIA reported.
  • Russian prosecutors have asked a court to move jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to a maximum security prison after requesting that he serve 13 years in prison on new fraud charges, AFP reported. Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic in Russia, was jailed last year for parole violations related to charges he says were trumped up.
  • The UK is to impose sanctions on 370 more Russian individuals, including more than 50 oligarchs and their families with a combined net worth of £100bn. More than 1,000 individuals and entities have now been targeted with sanctions since the invasion of Ukraine, with fresh measures announced against key Kremlin spokespeople and political allies of Putin, including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.
  • More than 100,000 people have offered homes to Ukrainian refugees in the first 24 hours of a government scheme that allows families and individuals to bring them to the UK. The website for registering interest in the scheme crashed for a short while because of the numbers offering help.

Updated

Biden to attend EU summit in Brussels next week – EU official

AFP reports the US president will travel to Belgium to attend an EU summit.

More to follow …

Updated

Nearly 100 children have died in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskiy says

Nearly 100 children have died in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a virtual address to Canadian lawmakers.

He said:

They destroying everything: memorial complexes, schools, hospitals, housing complex. They already killed 97 Ukrainian children. We are not asking for much. We are asking for justice, for real support.

The besieged city of Mariupol was “left without heat or hydro, without means of communicating, almost without food, without water”, Zelenskiy added.

The Ukrainian leader has sought to drum up support for Ukraine with video briefings of foreign audiences that have included the European and British parliaments. He is due to address the US Congress tomorrow.

Updated

There are reports that Russian forces have taken patients and medical staff of a hospital in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol as hostages.

According to the BBC, Mariupol’s deputy mayor Sergei Orlov said:

We received information that the Russian army captured our biggest hospital … and they’re using our patients and doctors like hostages.

We can confirm this information and also the governor of Donetsk region has confirmed this confirmation. We received information that there are 400 people there.

Updated

A journalist who interrupted a live news programme on Russian state TV last night to protest against the war in Ukraine has been fined 30,000 roubles (£215) by a Russian court.

A court found Marina Ovsyannikova guilty of flouting protest legislation, the Russian state news agency RIA reported.

Ovsyannikova, a Russian television producer, burst on to the set of Channel One during the national evening news on Monday, holding a poster that read “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.”

Lawyers had been unable to find Ovsyannikova for nearly 24 hours after her protest, which was an extraordinary act of defiance given that Russia had ramped up its already strict censorship laws when the war began.

She reappeared on Tuesday evening in a Moscow courtroom alongside lawyer Anton Gashinsky. According to Novaya Gazeta, Ovsyannikova was charged with an administrative offence for holding an unauthorised protest.

In a photograph taken in the courtroom, Ovsyannikova appeared unharmed and was wearing the same necklace in the colours of the Ukrainian flag as during her protest.

Updated

Canadian Members of Parliament and invited guests applaud before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the Canadian parliament, Tuesday, March 15, 2022 in Ottawa.
Canadian MPs applaud as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the Canadian parliament on Tuesday. Photograph: Adrian Wyld/AP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is seen via videoconference as he makes an address to Parliament, in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Tuesday, March 15, 2022.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy is seen via videoconference as he makes an address to parliament, in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Tuesday. Photograph: Justin Tang/AP

Updated

More than 100 buses carrying civilians have left the besieged city of Sumy in north-eastern Ukraine for a safe area, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

The evacuation, organised by the ICRC and Ukrainian Red Cross, is made up of two separate convoys headed towards Poltava, in central Ukraine.

ICRC spokesperson Jason Straziuso told Reuters the buses might not be able to take a direct route to Poltava, adding that the Russian side had given a green light for the evacuation.

Earlier, ICR spokesperson Ewan Watson said more than 70 buses were ready in Sumy to evacuate civilians who had gathered ahead of a “safe passage” operation organised by the Red Cross.

Updated

Ukraine says it has been hit by 3,000 cyber-attacks since mid Feb

A total of 3,000 cyber attacks against Ukrainian targets have been recorded since mid-February, according to Victor Zhora, the deputy chairman of the country’s SSSCIP cyber security agency.

Many of the attacks, almost certainly from Russia, have been aimed at knocking out internet service providers and other communications as well as government and financial services in parallel with Moscow’s military offensive, Zhora added.

The record number was “275 in a day” Zhora told reporters in a briefing, part of an uptick in hacker attacks seen since before the war started on 15 February. Most were denial of service attacks aimed at preventing a service from functioning.

An apparent attack on Viasat, a satellite communications company, at the end of February that disrupted service in Ukraine and elsewhere is under investigation by Ukraine, Zhora said, as well as reportedly by the US National Security Agency.

Some of Russia’s traditional military activity has also been aimed at disrupting communications, Zhora added, including the bombing of TV towers in Kyiv a fortnight ago and in Rivne, in the north of the country, on Monday.

Mobile communications have also been affected, at times, most recently in the southern city of Kherson, as Russian forces destroy base stations. It was part of a concerted effort to prevent Ukrainians from communicating and removing their sources for information, the official said.

“They will use all the means they can to change the infosphere in Ukraine,” Zhora added.

Updated

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pleaded for Canada and its allies to do more to stop the Russian invasion of his country, including establishing a no-fly zone as civilian casualties mount, Leyland Cecco writes.

“How many more cruise missiles need to fall on our cities?” he asked in a televised address to Canada’s parliament, adding that 97 children had been killed so far.

Ahead of the speech, Canada’s House of Commons was tightly packed with lawmakers, their families and members of the public. dozens of parliamentarians were dressed in yellow and blue and wearing ribbons in support of Ukraine.

Calling Volodymyr Zelenskiy a friend, prime minister Justin Trudeau said the embattled nation had the full support of Canada.

We like to root for the underdog. We believe that when a cause is just and right, it will always prevail, no matter the size of the opponents.

This doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. Ukrainians are already paying incalculable human costs. This illegal and unnecessary war is a grave mistake. Putin must stop it now.

Speaking to a standing ovation, Zelenskiy asked lawmakers and the prime minister to imagine major Canadian cities and landmarks under attack.

Justin, can you imagine your children hearing all of these intense explosions?

Zelenskiy thanked Canada and European nations for providing weapons and humanitarian aid, which has been critical in blunting the Russian attack.

“Unfortunately this did not bring an end to the war,” he said.

Kharkhiv, Mariupol, are not protected like your cities are protected.

Zelenskiy said more was needed from European and North American nations, in addition to a growing list of sanctions targeting wealthy and influential Russians.

In a plea to Canada’s 1.4 million Ukrainians, the second largest diaspora in the world, Zelenskiy asked for their help.

We need your support. Show you’re more than Ukrainian history.

Updated

Fox News has confirmed its cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski was killed while reporting in Ukraine on Monday.

Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott wrote to employees this morning:

It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we share the news this morning regarding our beloved cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski.

Zakrzewski was with correspondent Benjamin Hall “when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire”, Scott said. Hall remains hospitalised in Ukraine, he added.

Pierre was a war zone photographer who covered nearly every international story for Fox News from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria during his long tenure with us.

His passion and talent as a journalist were unmatched. Based in London, Pierre had been working in Ukraine since February.

Updated

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has been speaking at a press conference in Brussels, where he said defence ministers will be meeting tomorrow in a “defining moment for our security”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing death and destruction every day, Stoltenberg said, and its actions have “shocked the world and shaken the international order”.

He said Russia was making “absurd claims” about biological labs and chemical weapons in Ukraine.

This is just another line and we are concerned that Moscow could stage a false flag operation, possibly including chemical weapons.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created “a new security reality” on the European continent, he said.

We need to reset Nato’s military posture for this new reality.

Ministers will discuss concrete measures to reinforce Nato’s security for the longer term, Stoltenberg said. This could include “substantially more forces” in the eastern part of the alliance “at higher readiness and with more pre-positioned equipments”.

We will also consider major increases to our air and naval deployments, strengthening our integrated air and missile defence, reinforcing our cyber defences and holder more and larger exercises.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a pre-ministerial press conference at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, 15 March 2022.
Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a pre-ministerial press conference at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday. Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/EPA

Updated

Russia imposes sanctions on Biden, Blinken and top White House officials

Russia said it has put the US president, secretary of state and other top officials on a “stop list” that bars them from entering the country, Reuters is reporting.

Defence secretary Lloyd Austin, CIA chief William Burns, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton were included on a list of 13 individuals banned from Russia in response to sanctions imposed by Washington on Russian officials.

Updated

In his latest video address, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said five people were killed in Russian airstrikes on residential areas in the Kyiv region this morning.

In his remarks, Zelenskiy said humanitarian corridors had been able to partially open on Tuesday.

He said:

They destroyed four residential buildings, now we’re talking about five deaths in Kyiv.

Earlier today, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the number of people killed in this morning’s airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital was four.

Addressing Russian directly, said:

You bombed it today. This is in our capital, in the city which you refer to always as the mother of Russian cities.

Updated

'Every shot against Ukraine is a step Russia takes to destroy itself' says Volodymyr Zelenskiy in new address

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has released a new video in which he accuses Russia of “trying to destroy” Ukraine.

In his remarks, he describes Russia’s actions as an act of self-harm and highlights the number of people leaving the country.

He said:

We are fighting for life, we are fighting against tanks, planes and mortars that Russia is using against us to destroy us.

But Russia is also destroying itself. Every shot against Ukraine, this is a step that Russia takes to destroy itself, to self-isolate … everybody leaves Russia now, all who can think.

Programmers, businessmen, artists. The Russian state has never experienced for decades such a blow to the human capital, the blow that it has inflicted upon itself.

But it doesn’t worry us, it is not our problem. Our issue is to preserve ourselves, our people.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a video statement on day 19 of the war which began when Russian forces invaded.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a video statement on day 19 of the war. Photograph: Reuters

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. I’ll be back at 7am London time tomorrow but I’ll hand back to my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong, who will bring you more from that Zelenskiy video as it comes.

Updated

Russian state TV employee in court on trial over anti-war protest

The woman who interrupted a live news programme on Russian state TV last night is on trial at Moscow’s Ostankino court.

The protester was identified as Marina Ovsyannikova, a Channel One employee, according to OVD-Info and the head of the Agora human rights group.

State investigators were looking on Tuesday at whether she could be punished under a new law that carries jail terms of up to 15 years, Russia’s Tass news agency cited a law enforcement source as saying.

However, BBC News reported that Ovsyannikova is being charged with “organising an unauthorised public event”, an administrative charge which could result in a fine of up to 30,000 roubles (£200), community service or up to 10 days in jail.

It was reported earlier today that her lawyers were unable to locate her but a photo of Ovsyannikova alongside a lawyer has since been shared on Twitter.

Updated

Canada has announced it is to impose sanctions on 15 Russian officials who enabled and supported Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to apply additional pressure on Moscow.

The new sanctions were announced ahead of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s expected virtual address to the Canadian parliament at 11.15am local time (3.15pm GMT), Reuters reported.

Canadian foreign minister Melanie Joly said:

President Putin made the choice to further his illegal and unjustifiable invasion, and he can also make the choice to end it by immediately ending the senseless violence and withdrawing his forces.

Canada will not hesitate to take further action should the Russian leadership fail to change course.

Canadian foreign minister Melanie Joly
Canadian foreign minister Melanie Joly. Photograph: Alexandru Dobre/AP

Updated

More than 70 buses are ready in the besieged city of Sumy in north-eastern Ukraine to evacuate civilians who have gathered ahead of a “safe passage” operation the Red Cross hopes to start on Tuesday, a spokesperson said.

“People have assembled, we hope it will go ahead as planned,” Ewan Watson, spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told Reuters in Geneva. “We are hoping at the very least to start this operation today.”

Earlier, Watson told a UN briefing in Geneva that the ICRC and Ukrainian Red Cross were hoping to organise the evacuation of two convoys of 30 buses to a safe area.

People remove debris at the site of a military base building that, according to the Ukrainian ground forces, was destroyed by an air strike, in the Sumy region.
People remove debris at the site of a military base building in the Sumy region that, according to the Ukrainian ground forces was destroyed by an airstrike,. Photograph: Press Service Of The Ukrainian Ground Forces/Reuters

It comes as 2,000 civilian vehicles left the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on a so-called humanitarian corridor.

The city council said another 2,000 cars were waiting to leave along the evacuation route, which runs west for more than 160 miles to the Ukraine-held city of Zaporizhzhia.

City officials advised drivers to spend the night along the route unless they were close to Zaporizhzhia by evening. Mariupol had a population of 430,000 before the war.

Updated

Spanish authorities have detained a yacht owned by Russian oligarch Alexander Mikheyev, who is under European Union sanctions, according to a police source.

The Lady Anastasia cannot leave the marina of Port Adriano in Mallorca, where it is moored, the source told Reuters.

On Monday, the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said authorities had temporarily seized a Russian oligarch’s £108m yacht in Barcelona.

Sánchez told La Sexta television:

Today we seized – the technical term is provisionally immobilised – a yacht belonging to one of the principal oligarchs.

Superyacht Valerie is estimated to be worth £108m and has been docked at Barcelona Port. It is believed to belong to Russian oligarch and Putin ally Sergei Chemezov.
Superyacht Valerie is estimated to be worth £108m and has been docked at Barcelona Pport. It is believed to belong to Russian oligarch and Putin ally Sergei Chemezov. Photograph: Albert Gea/Reuters

Updated

Russian prosecutors have asked a court to move jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to a maximum security prison after requesting that he serve 13 years in prison on new fraud charges, AFP reports.

Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic in Russia, was jailed last year after surviving a poison attack he blames on the Kremlin.

Prosecutor Nadezhda Tikhonova was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies:

I request that Navalny be sentenced to a term of 13 years and a subsequent two years of probation.

It was not immediately clear if the 13 years include the two-and-a-half-year sentence he is serving at a prison camp east of Moscow for parole violations related to charges he says were trumped up.

The prosecutor also requested that Navalny pay a fine of 1.2m roubles (£8,250).

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, pictured on 29 February 2020, is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence at a prison camp east of Moscow.
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, pictured on 29 February, 2020, is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence at a prison camp east of Moscow. Photograph: Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters

Updated

The Russian television producer who staged an extraordinary anti-war protest live on national television on Monday night outlined her plan to a friend the day before, having become increasingly angry about the Russian invasion, Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth report.

Marina Ovsyannikova burst on to the set of Channel One during the national evening news holding a poster that read “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.” She was arrested shortly afterwards and has not been heard from since.

“The anger has been building up with her ever since the war started,” said a friend of Ovsyannikova’s, who asked to stay anonymous. “Two days ago, she told me how she was going to do it.”

The Guardian has seen a number of exchanged messages in which Ovsyannikova informs the friend about her plans. The friend said that Ovsyannikova, who has a Ukrainian parent, had been expressing deep unease over Russia’s actions since the war started.

Ovsyannikova also released a pre-recorded video via the OVD-Info human rights group in which she expressed her shame at working for Channel One. “Regrettably, for a number of years, I worked on Channel One and worked on Kremlin propaganda, I am very ashamed of this right now,” she said in the video.

Lawyers have been unable to find Ovsyannikova since her protest, which was an extraordinary act of defiance given that Russia had tightened its already strict censorship laws when the war began.

Her disappearance in police custody has raised concerns that she could be facing pressure to recant or that authorities could be preparing to slap her with more serious charges.

Monday’s evening broadcast on Russia’s main news channel was interrupted by Marina Ovsyannikova holding an anti-war poster.
Monday’s evening broadcast on Russia’s main news channel was interrupted by Marina Ovsyannikova holding an anti-war poster. Photograph: NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

During the funeral in Lviv of four Ukrainian men, killed in a Russian military attack, the priest had to interrupt the ceremony due to an air raid alarm, Lorenzo Tondo reports.

The pastor had to stop family members carrying the coffins outside the church.

Hundreds of people attended the funerals of the four men, all soldiers, killed in the deadly Russian attack on a Ukrainian military base, in Yavoriv, on 15 March, near the Polish border, where, in total, 35 people were killed.

The four men were of different ages. The youngest was born in 1991, the oldest in 1966.

Once the air raid alarm was over, the priest resumed the ceremony and the coffins were carried outside to be buried in a cemetery in the city.

Funeral of soldiers in Lviv interrupted by air raid alarm
Mourners at a funeral of soldiers in Lviv interrupted by an air raid alarm. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

Updated

Russia-Ukraine talks are ongoing – Ukrainian negotiator

Talks between Russia and Ukraine have resumed after a pause on Monday, Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said.

On Monday, Podolyak said negotiations had taken a “technical pause” until Tuesday for “additional work in the working subgroups and clarification of individual definitions”.

Updated

UK to impose sanctions on 370 more Russians

The UK is to impose sanctions on a further 370 Russian individuals, including more than 50 oligarchs and their families with a combined net worth of £100bn, in the latest raft of measures against Vladimir Putin’s regime, Peter Walker and Jessica Elgot report.

More than 1,000 individuals and entities have been targeted with sanctions since the invasion of Ukraine, with fresh measures announced against key Kremlin spokespeople and political allies of the Russian president, including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, considered a member of Putin’s elite inner circle of advisers known as his siloviki.

Other key political figures placed under sanction include the prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, and former president Dmitry Medvedev, as well as Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, and the foreign affairs spokesperson, Maria Zakharova.

Oligarchs now subject to UK sanctions include Mikhail Fridman, who co-founded Russian conglomerate Alfa-Group with German Khan, also subject to sanctions, as well as the close Putin ally Petr Aven, who was previously head of Russia’s largest commercial bank. The FCO said family members would also be subject to sanctions.

The slew of new sanctions on individual oligarchs and elites, as well as businesses, politicians and organisations, came after the passage of the economic crime bill on Monday night, which is intended to make it swifter and easier to target oligarchs and Russian interests.

Updated

People stand in front of the reception center for refugees, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Nadarzyn, Poland, March 14, 2022.
People stand in front of a reception centre for refugees, in Nadarzyn, Poland, on Monday. Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters
A boy plays with a balloon as people fleeing Ukraine wait at the Metropolitan Assistance Centre for Ukrainian Refugees in the Congress Centre of Prague, Czech Republic, 15 March 2022.
A boy plays with a balloon as people fleeing Ukraine wait at the Metropolitan Assistance Centre for Ukrainian Refugees in the Congress Centre of Prague, Czech Republic, on Tuesday. Photograph: Martin Divíšek/EPA

Updated

It is just past 3pm in Ukraine.

Updated

2,000 cars leave Mariupol via humanitarian convoy – local officials

About 2,000 cars have been able to leave the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol and a further 2,000 are waiting to leave, according to local authorities.

In an online post published today, Mariupol city council said:

As of 14:00 (1200 GMT), it is known that 2,000 cars have left Mariupol.

But deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said a convoy with supplies with Mariupol was stuck at nearby Berdyansk.

Vereshchuk accused Russia of lying about fulfilling agreements to help trapped civilians. She added that convoys of private cars were not sufficient to evacuate people from Mariupol and buses needed to be let through.

On Monday, local authorities said more than 160 private cars left Mariupol in what would be the first successful evacuation since the city was encircled by Russian troops more than two weeks ago.

About 300 civilians had by Tuesday morning reached the city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles from Mariupol.

Mariupol city council said earlier today:

As was reported, about 160 cars left Mariupol yesterday. As of 10:00 (0800 GMT) there is information that about 300 Mariupol residents reached Zaporizhzhia.

At least 200,000 people are in urgent need of evacuation from Mariupol, according to official Ukrainian estimates.

Residents in the city have been without heating, electricity and running water for most of the past two weeks, authorities say.

More than 2,500 Mariupol residents have been killed since the Russian invasion on 24 February, a senior official from the Ukrainian President’s Office said in a statement on Monday.

Updated

The United Nations has called on Russian authorities to make sure that an anti-war protester who interrupted Russian state television is not punished for exercising her right to free speech.

Earlier today, the Kremlin said the actions of a woman who interrupted a live news bulletin on Russia’s state TV Channel One on Monday night to denounce the war in Ukraine amounted to “hooliganism”.

The protester, in an extraordinary act of dissent, held up a sign behind the studio presenter and shouted slogans denouncing the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.

Ravina Shamdasani, UN human rights spokesperson, told reporters today that Russian authorities should ensure that the woman “does not face any reprisals for exercising her right to freedom of expression”.

The protester was later identified as Maria Ovsyannikova, an employee of Russia Channel One, according to OVD-Info, an independent human rights protest-monitoring group.

A lawyer for Ovsyannikova told CNN today that he has been trying to locate his client since her protest on Monday, and still does not know where she is.

Dmitry Zakhvatov confirmed that Ovsyannikova is the woman seen on air holding the sign and that she is an editor for the channel.

Updated

The EU has imposed sanctions on the boss of anti-war protester Marina Ovsyannikova at Russia’s Channel One, along with Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich for his “very good relations with Vladimir Putin”, Daniel Boffey and Jennifer Rankin report.

Konstantin Ernst, the chief executive of the state-controlled TV channel, and Abramovich are among 15 individuals newly targeted by the EU.

Along with the extended list of individuals on whom asset freeze and travel bans are imposed, to be published later on Tuesday, the EU is also banning investments in Russia’s energy sector, as well as exports of finished steel products and most luxury goods, such as precious stones, clothes and carpets, over the value of €300 (£252) and cars worth more than €50,000.

There is also a complete transaction ban with nine Russian state-owned enterprises and the EU has prohibited the rating of the country and its companies by credit rating agencies.

Brussels has made a discernible effort to squeeze individuals and entities that have aided Putin in spreading his message about the invasion of Ukraine.

Roman Abramovich is among 15 individuals newly targeted by the EU after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Roman Abramovich is among 15 individuals newly targeted by the EU after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters

Updated

Vladimir Putin plans to order the mass logging of Ukrainian forests to be sold as lumber in Russia, a document published by Ukraine’s military intelligence claims.

The document, published by the Ukrainian defence intelligence today, reportedly shows a letter from Russia’s minister of defence, Sergei Shoigu, addressed to the Russian president.

The letter discusses the subject of “the possibility of felling on defence lands”, Ukrainian intelligence claims, with the money from the sale of the wood going to funding the Russian army.

Note: the Guardian has not been able to verify these reports.

The number of people killed in airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital this morning has risen to four, according to Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko.

A series of Russian strikes hit a residential neighbourhood in Kyiv on Tuesday morning, igniting a huge fire and prompting a frantic rescue effort in a 15-storey apartment building. Emergency services earlier said two people were killed.

Reuters is now reporting that the death toll from today’s airstrikes has been updated to four.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko posted on Telegram:

Rescuers are still extinguishing the flames from early morning.

Firefighters work to put out a fire in a residential apartment building after it was hit by shelling as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 15, 2022.
Firefighters work to put out a fire in a residential apartment building after it was hit by shelling in Kyiv on Tuesday. Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters
Firefighters work to put out a fire in a residential apartment building after it was hit by shelling as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 15, 2022. REUTERS/Marko Djurica
Firefighters work to put out a fire in a residential apartment building in Kyiv on Tuesday. Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

Updated

Civilians trapped in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol are “essentially being suffocated with no aid”, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

People in Mariupol are “facing the impossible choices of how to feed their families and themselves and are trapped”, an ICRC spokesperson said today.

The Red Cross is hoping to organise the evacuation of civilians in two convoys of some 30 buses out of the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy and their passage to a safe area, Ewan Watson said.

The planned operation out of Sumy would be carried out with the Ukrainian Red Cross but was not yet under way, he said.

We are moving towards Sumy with a view to facilitate safe passage of civilians out, we are hoping that does take place as planned.

He noted there had been delays with similar evacuations from Mariupol, where he said people are “essentially being suffocated in this city now with no aid”.

We know of families undoing oil heaters to take water out as a last resort to have something to drink.

People cover from shelling inside an entryway to an apartment building in Mariupol, Ukraine, Sunday, March 13, 2022.
People cover from shelling inside an entryway to an apartment building in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Sunday. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said he hoped to evacuate Turkish citizens from Mariupol on Tuesday or Wednesday, after a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

He told reporters:

The conditions for the evacuation of our citizens from Mariupol are emerging. We expect good news today or tomorrow.

Fourteen thousand eight hundred Turkish citizens had been evacuated from Ukraine so far amid Russia’s invasion, Çavuşoğlu added.

Earlier today, Turkish defence ministry sources said Ankara was awaiting approval from Russian authorities for the Mariupol evacuation, pending a security evaluation.

The sources said landmines in the area had been cleared, and work is continuing to open humanitarian corridors and for buses to enter the city.

Updated

Russian 'war machine' will target other European countries, Zelenskiy warns

In a live address to western leaders this morning, Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelenskiy warned the Russian “war machine” would target them if it is not stopped.

Zelenskiy thanked countries who have “taken a moral stance” against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, in particular the UK prime minister Boris Johnson “for his leadership”.

He told leaders:

We can stop Russia. We can stop the killing of people. It will be easier to do it together, to stop the destruction of democracy and stop it now on our land.

Or else they will also come to you.

Hello again, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong with you today as we unpack all the latest developments on the Russia-Ukraine war. As always, do feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.

Updated

A Ukrainian woman Olga, 25, and her child Svatoslav, 2, who fled the war from Poltava region in Ukraine wait at Przemysl train station on their way to Germany, in Przemysl, Poland, Tuesday, March 15, 2022.
Olga, 25, and her child Svatoslav, two, who fled the war from Poltava region in Ukraine, wait at Przemysl train station on their way to Germany, in Przemysl, Poland, on Tuesday. Photograph: Petros Giannakouris/AP
Interior view of a damaged apartment following an overnight shelling on a holiday village in the Osokorky district, outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, 15 March 2022.
Inside a damaged apartment following the overnight shelling of a holiday village in the Osokorky district, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday. Photograph: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA

Updated

Summary

The time in Kyiv is 1pm. Here is a roundup of the top stories from the day so far:

  • Two powerful explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv before dawn on Tuesday. Emergency services said two people died when an apartment building in Kyiv was attacked. The death toll was later updated to four.
  • An adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday the war in Ukraine was at a crossroads that could lead to an agreement at talks with Russia or a new Russian offensive.
  • Russia’s defence ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said on Tuesday that Russian forces had taken full control of all territory in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, Russian news agencies reported.
  • An adviser in the Ukraine government says the the war should be over by May because Russia will run out of resources to keep the invasion going.
  • The leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia are travelling on Tuesday to Kyiv on a European Union mission to show support for Ukraine as Russia’s invasion intensifies.
  • The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) says Russia has reportedly installed its own mayor in the city of Melitopol following the alleged abduction of his predecessor on Friday.
  • Nearly all of the Russian military offensives in Ukraine remain stalled after making little progress over the weekend, according to a Penatgon briefing. Russian troops are still about 15km (nine miles) from the centre of Kyiv, a US defence official said, Reuters reports.
  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy has used his latest address to urge Russian troops to choose surrender over the “shame” of continuing with the war. Speaking partly in Russian, he said the war had become a “nightmare” for Russia and that it had lost more soldiers in Ukraine than during both Chechen wars combined.
  • The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the actions of a woman who interrupted a live news bulletin on Russia’s state TV Channel One on Monday to denounce the war in Ukraine amounted to “hooliganism”.
  • US president Joe Biden is considering travelling to Europe for in-person meetings with Nato allies, Reuters reports. Biden could meet other leaders in Brussels on 23 March and then travel to Poland, the report said.
  • UK ministers have imposed a series of new export bans and tariffs on Russian products, the morning after the passage of an economic crime bill, intended to make it swifter and easier to target oligarchs and Russian interests.
  • Ukraine will make a fresh attempt to deliver supplies to civilians trapped in the encircled city of Mariupol on Tuesday, deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
  • Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said he expected to evacuate citizens from Ukraine’s southern port city of Mariupol on Tuesday or Wednesday, he told reporters after a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
  • The EU has this morning formally agreed to a fourth package of sanctions, including an asset freeze and travel ban on Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich. The full details are expected to be published in the Journal of the European Union later today.
  • Abramovich is described as a “Russian oligarch who has long and close ties to Vladimir Putin”, in a copy of the EU’s legal text relating to its latest sanctions package due to be published later today.
  • Boris Johnson has urged the west to end its “addiction” to Russian fuel as he heads for Saudi Arabia in a push for increased oil output.
  • Almost 89,000 people have offered homes to Ukrainian refugees in the first hours of a government scheme that allows families and individuals to bring them to the UK.
  • Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder met Roman Abramovich in Moscow for several hours last Thursday, tabloid Bild reports this morning. The purpose of the Gazprom lobbyist’s one-man diplomatic mission, and upon whose request it took place, remains unclear.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for the time being. I will be back at 2pm London time but my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong will be along shortly. Bye for now.

Updated

Ukraine appealed for a global army of IT experts to help in the battle against Putin – and many answered the call.

The Guardian’s Chris Stokel-Walker and Dan Milmo spoke to people on the digital frontline …

Updated

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the actions of a woman who interrupted a live news bulletin on Russia’s state TV Channel One on Monday to denounce the war in Ukraine amounted to “hooliganism”.

The protester, in an extraordinary act of dissent, held up a sign behind the studio presenter and shouted slogans denouncing the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.

“As far as this woman is concerned, this is hooliganism,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters, praising Channel One for what he called its quality, objective and timely programming.

Anti-war protester disrupts live Russian state TV news.
Anti-war protester disrupts live Russian state TV news. Photograph: Channel One/Reuters

Updated

German supermarkets are reporting a run on sunflower oil, amid fears that the war in Ukraine could cause supply shortages. Ukraine provides over 50% of the world market in sunflower oil, with Germany one of its largest importers.

“In our stores we are currently noticing an increased demand especially for sunflower oil, as well as rapeseed oil and olive oil”, said a spokesperson for supermarket chain Aldi Süd.

A spokesperson for sister company Aldi Nord told broadsheet Die Welt that the chain would reserve the right to temporarily restrict sale of sunflower oil per customer.

A spokesperson for the Federal Association of the German Retail Grocery Trade urged people to refrain from hoarding and show “solidarity” to other shoppers, “as at the start of the corona crisis”.

Updated

Turkey’s foreign minister said on Tuesday he expected to evacuate citizens from Ukraine’s southern port city of Mariupol on Tuesday or Wednesday, he told reporters after a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

“The conditions for the evacuation of our citizens from Mariupol are emerging. We expect good news today or tomorrow,” Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said in Ankara.

He added that 14,800 Turkish citizens had been evacuated from Ukraine so far, and that Turkish officials held a meeting with Ukrainian negotiators on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Saturday that Russian forces had shelled the Sultan Suleiman mosque in Mariupol, where more than 80 adults and children, including Turks, have taken refuge.

Earlier on Tuesday, defence ministry sources said Ankara was awaiting approval from Russian authorities for the Mariupol evacuation, pending a security evaluation.

The sources said landmines in the area had been cleared, and work was continuing to open humanitarian corridors and for buses to enter the city.

Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.
Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. Photograph: Zsolt Szigetváry/EPA

Updated

UK ministers have imposed a series of new export bans and tariffs on Russian products, the morning after the passage of the economic crime bill, intended to make it swifter and easier to target oligarchs and Russian interests.

The UK will deny Russia and Belarus access to WTO most-favoured nation tariffs for hundreds of their exports, a statement from the trade department and Treasury said, with an initial list of goods facing additional 35% tariffs.

Russian vodka is among products affected by the increases, while the export ban is billed as affecting areas such as luxury vehicles, high-end fashion and works of art going from the UK to Russia.

Updated

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder met the Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich in Moscow for several hours last Thursday, tabloid Bild reports this morning.

The purpose of the Gazprom lobbyist’s one-man diplomatic mission, and upon whose request it took place, remains unclear.

Schröder, who hasn’t stepped down from his roles as supervisory board chairman at Nord Stream AG and Rosneft in spite of appeals by the German government, also met with the head of the Russian delegations in talks with Ukraine, Vladimir Medinsky, after travelling to Moscow last Wednesday.

Bild reported that Schröder met Abramovich on Thursday night at the luxury Kempinski hotel, near the Kremlin.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s team said last week they had only found out about the ex-chancellor’s dash to Moscow via the press, while the Ukrainian side denied it had tasked Schröder to act as an intermediary to his long-time friend Vladimir Putin.

Updated

Russian aviation authorities have fired an official who said last week that China had refused to supply Russian airlines with aircraft parts in the wake of Western sanctions, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing sources and the official.

Valery Kudinov, an official at Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) responsible for maintaining airplane airworthiness, said Russia was in talks to source parts from countries including Turkey and India after a failed attempt to obtain them from China.

An industry source confirmed to Reuters that Kudinov had been sacked, adding that he lost his job because of his public statements about China. Rosaviatsia declined to comment, Reuters reported.

Russian newspaper Kommersant cited Kudinov as saying that he had been fired for disclosing information under a federal law governing how civil servants must behave.

Russia’s aviation sector is being squeezed by Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

Almost 89,000 people have offered homes to Ukrainian refugees in the first hours of a government scheme that allows families and individuals to bring them to the UK.

The website for registering interest in the scheme crashed for a short while because of the numbers offering homes. By 9am on Tuesday, 88,712 had joined the scheme. The Foreign Office minister, James Cleverly, said “10,000 people every hour” were signing up.

A spokesman said the Homes for Ukraine website “temporarily stalled” after it went live late on Monday afternoon, owing to the “enormous generosity of the British public”. He said the total number of offers was continuing to rise, with offers doubling within hours.

Almost 3 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, with more internally displaced as cities are shelled.

Until Monday, only Ukrainians with family links to the UK could apply for visas that would give them access to work and benefits.

But on Monday Michael Gove announced that sponsors could bring any Ukrainian to the UK to live in their home for a minimum of six months, for which they would receive a £350 monthly payment.

Under the scheme, refugees will be allowed to live and work in the UK for up to three years and receive full and unrestricted access to benefits, healthcare, employment and other support.

An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that the war in Ukraine was at a crossroads that could lead to an agreement at talks with Russia or a new Russian offensive.

“We are at a crossroads. Either we will agree at the current talks or the Russians will make a second attempt [at an offensive] and then there will be talks again,” adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said.

It came as a British Foreign Office minister has said he “hopes” talks between Russia and Ukraine progress towards ending aggression.

Asked on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme if he thinks the talks between the two sides will yield a positive outcome, James Cleverly said: “I hope so.”

But he added that the invasion has not been as successful as the Kremlin had first hoped, PA Media reported.

“We have seen a lot of disinformation coming out of Russia, we’ve seen a lot of dishonesty coming out of Vladimir Putin,” he said on Tuesday.

“But the simple fact is that the attack that he thought was going to be so easy has proven to be anything but easy.

“The Ukrainians - from President Zelenskiy to those students that have signed up to join the defence force - the defence of their country has been amazing and they have forced Russia to reconsider the attacks.”

Updated

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is described as a “Russian oligarch who has long and close ties to Vladimir Putin”, in a copy of the EU’s legal text relating to its latest sanctions package due to be published later today.

It says:

He has had privileged access to the president, and has maintained very good relations with him.

This connection with the Russian leader helped him to maintain his considerable wealth.

He is a major shareholder of the steel group Evraz, which is one of Russia’s largest taxpayers.

Ukraine will make a fresh attempt to deliver supplies to civilians trapped in the encircled city of Mariupol on Tuesday, deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

Moscow on Monday allowed the first convoy of civilians to escape Mariupol, but a senior presidential aide said Russia had again blocked a humanitarian aid convoy trying to reach the city with supplies, Reuters reported.

Obtaining safe passage for aid to reach Mariupol and for civilians to leave has been Kyiv’s main demand at several rounds of talks. Previous attempts at a local ceasefire in the area have failed.

Vereshchuk said a convoy with humanitarian supplies would head for Mariupol on Tuesday. “On the way back it will pick up women and children,” she said.

A woman walks past a burning apartment building after shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Sunday, March 13, 2022.
A woman walks past a burning apartment building after shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Sunday. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Civilians have been trapped in the southern port city by Russian shelling for more than two weeks and have been without heating, electricity and running water for most of this time, the Ukrainian authorities say.

A convoy of at least 160 cars left the city on Monday, local officials said, but many more residents remain in Mariupol.

Updated

EU agrees fourth package of Russian sanctions

The EU has this morning formally agreed to a fourth package of sanctions, including an asset freeze and travel ban on Roman Abramovich.

The full details are expected to be published in the Journal of the European Union later today.

The sanctions include:

  • An EU import ban on a range of steel products.
  • A ban on new investment across the Russian energy sector, with limited exceptions for civil nuclear energy and the transport of certain energy products back to the EU.
  • An EU export ban on luxury goods (eg luxury cars, jewellery) over €300.
  • A ban on the rating of Russia and Russian companies by EU credit rating agencies and the provision of rating services to Russian clients, which would result in them losing even further access to the EU’s financial markets.

The ban follows discussions among EU leaders in Versailles on Thursday and Friday.

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is seen in a VIP lounge at Ben Gurion international airport in Israel.
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is seen in a VIP lounge at Ben Gurion international airport in Israel. Photograph: Reuters

Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, said:

As President Putin’s war against Ukrainian people continues, so does our resolve to support Ukraine and cripple the financing of Kremlin’s war machinery.

This fourth package of sanctions is another major blow to the economic and logistic base upon which Russia relies on to carry out the invasion of Ukraine.

The aim of the sanctions is that President Putin stops this inhuman and senseless war.

Updated

Firefighters battled flames at a residential building the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Tuesday after a series of Russian artillery strikes.

Earlier in the morning, a projectile was seen over the city’s skyline, followed by a bright flash and a series of explosions.

It is not known if the projectile was a part of the Russian strikes or an intercepting missile from Ukrainian ground forces.

Updated

Leaders of Poland, Czech Republic and Slovenia travel to Kyiv to meet Zelenskiy

The leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia are travelling on Tuesday to Kyiv on a European Union mission to show support for Ukraine as Russia’s invasion intensifies.

Petr Fiala, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, said in a tweet: “The aim of the visit is to express the European Union’s unequivocal support for Ukraine and its freedom and independence.”

He will be joined by Prime Minister Janez Jansa of Slovenia, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is Polish the deputy prime minister for security but also the conservative ruling party leader, Reuters reported.

  • This post was amended as we referred in one instance to Slovakia when Slovenia was meant.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala arrives to attend an informal summit of EU leaders at the Chateau de Versailles (Versailles Palace) in Versailles, near Paris, France March 11, 2022.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala arrives to attend an informal summit of EU leaders at the Chateau de Versailles (Versailles Palace) in Versailles, near Paris, France March 11, 2022. Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters

Updated

Russian air strikes on Kyiv apartment building leave two people dead

Two powerful explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv before dawn on Tuesday.

Emergency services said two people died when an apartment building in Kyiv was attacked.

Here is some more detail from the Associated Press news agency on the shelling:

Russia’s offensive in Ukraine edged closer to central Kyiv on Tuesday, with a series of strikes hitting a residential neighbourhood in the capital as the two countries planned a second day of talks.

Shortly before dawn, large explosions thundered across Kyiv from what Ukrainian authorities said was artillery strikes. The shelling ignited a huge fire and a frantic rescue effort in a 15-storey apartment building. At least one person was killed and others remain trapped inside.

Shockwaves from an explosion also damaged the entry to a downtown subway station that has been used as a bomb shelter. City authorities tweeted an image of the blown-out facade, saying trains would no longer stop at the station.

When Russia launched the war nearly three weeks ago, fear of an imminent invasion gripped the Ukrainian capital, as residents slept night after night in subway stations or crammed onto trains to flee.

But as the Russian offensive bogged down, Kyiv saw a relative lull. Fighting has intensified on the outskirts in recent days, and sporadic air raid sirens ring out around the capital.

An apartment building burns after it was struck by artillery shells in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 15, 2022.
An apartment building burns after it was struck by artillery shells in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 15, 2022. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP
Local residents from the residential building which was hit by artillery shelling stand in front of the building, in Kyiv, Ukraine, 15 March 2022.
Local residents from the residential building which was hit by artillery shelling stand in front of the building, in Kyiv, Ukraine, 15 March 2022. Photograph: Roman Pilipey/EPA
Residents evacuate after they were rescued from a residential apartment building that was hit by shelling as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 15, 2022.
Residents evacuate after they were rescued from a residential apartment building that was hit by shelling as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 15, 2022. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

Boris Johnson has urged the west to end its “addiction” to Russian fuel as he heads for Saudi Arabia in a push for increased oil output.

In an article for the Daily Telegraph, the UK prime minister said western leaders had made a “terrible mistake” by letting President Vladimir Putin “get away with” annexing Crimea in 2014 and becoming more dependent on Russian power sources.

No 10 confirmed the prime would travel to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday evening despite an outcry over the regime’s execution of 81 men on Saturday. Johnson will have talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the hope Saudi Arabia can raise its production of oil and gas to make up for a reduced reliance on Russia.

Johnson said the west’s “addiction” to Russian fuel had “emboldened” Putin to bomb civilians during his invasion of Ukraine, while at the same time profiting from soaring global oil and gas prices.

Russia’s defence ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said on Tuesday that Russian forces had taken full control of all territory in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, Russian news agencies reported.

Russian forces shot down six Bayraktar TB-2 drones in the last 24 hours, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the ministry.

Reuters could not verify the reports independently.

Live-streamed footage shows what appears to be Russian troops standing in the distance with a Z-marked military vehicle as people protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Kherson, Ukraine, March 13, 2022.
Live-streamed footage shows what appears to be Russian troops standing in the distance with a Z-marked military vehicle as people protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Kherson, Ukraine, March 13, 2022. Photograph: Video Obtained By Reuters/Reuters

Updated

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) says Russia has reportedly installed its own mayor in the city of Melitopol following the alleged abduction of his predecessor on Friday.

In an intelligence update, MoD said it was reported Russian forces have also fired warning shots at protesters as demonstrations broke out in occupied areas of Ukraine.

“Reporting suggests that Russia may seek to stage a ‘referendum’ in Kherson in an attempt to legitimise the area as a ‘breakaway republic’ similar to Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea,” it added.

I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest on Russia’s war in Ukraine over the next four hours.

Updated

Two people killed by shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine's emergency services say

Two people have been killed by shelling in Kyiv on Tuesday morning, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.

The bodies of two people were found at the scene, 35 people were rescued.

Updated

We’ve just reported on Boris Johnson’s trip to Saudi today to persuade the kingdom to pump more oil and help ease reliance on Russian fossil fuels.

The background to this question is what our diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour has called a “giant geopolitical game of chess” in a piece looking at whether the west relly can wean itself off Russian supplies – what he calls Vladimir Putin’s “sacred cash cow”.

Here is his piece:

Updated

There are pictures of firefighters tackling a blaze at an apartment block in Kyiv this morning after it was hit by a Russian missile attack. A picture also shows an elderly resident waiting to be rescued.

Ukrainian firefighters work in an apartment building after bombing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Ukrainian firefighters work on an apartment building after bombing in Kyiv on Tuesday.
 Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP
An elderly resident waits to be rescued.
An elderly resident waits to be rescued. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP
Ukrainian firefighters work in an apartment building after bombing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Firefighters at work in Kyiv. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP

Updated

West must end addiction to Russian energy, says Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson says the west must end its “addiction” to Russian energy as he prepares to head to Saudi Arabia to push for increased oil and gas production.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, the British prime minister said western leaders had made a “terrible mistake” by letting Vladimir Putin “get away with” annexing Crimea in 2014 and subsequently becoming “more dependent” on Russian power sources.

He said the “addiction” on Russian fuel had “emboldened” Putin to bomb civilians during his invasion of Ukraine, while at the same time profiting from soaring global oil and gas prices.

“We cannot go on like this. The world cannot be subject to this continuous blackmail,” said Johnson, whose administration has already announced its plan to phase out importing Russian oil by the end of the year.

“As long as the west is economically dependent on Putin, he will do all he can to exploit that dependence. And that is why that dependence must – and will – now end.”

Updated

If you’re just getting going for the day or just need a quick catchup on what’s going on, we have a full report wrapping in all the most important developments of the past few hours.

They include the latest address by Volodymyr Zelenskiy, China’s denial of claims it is supplying Russia with equipment and arms, and a claim by an adviser to the Ukraine president that the war could be over by May.

Updated

We’ve also got some video of the attack on Kyiv where you can see the city lit up by a bright flash followed by a very loud bang.

More Kyiv buildings hit after large explosions heard in Ukraine's capital

More explosions have been heard in Kyiv on Tuesday morning as Russian bombardment continues.

An apartment bulding was reportedly hit and set on fire, according to the state emergency service. The fire was put out and one person has been hospitalised.

A residential building damaged by shelling in Kyiv.
A residential building damaged by shelling in Kyiv. Photograph: State Emergency Service/Reuters

CNN also reported large blasts, citing its staff in the city.

Updated

China has denied claims by US officials that Russia had sought military assistance in Ukraine and accused Washington of spreading “malicious disinformation” that risked escalating the conflict.

After a tense day-long meeting between Chinese and US officials in Rome on Monday, Washington said it feared China had already starting supplying arms and equipment to Russia.

Xi Jinping meets Vladimir Putin in Beijing in February.
Xi Jinping meets Vladimir Putin in Beijing in February. Photograph: Li Tao/AP

But the Chinese embassy in London told Reuters in a statement: “The US has repeatedly spread malicious disinformation against China on the Ukraine issue. China has been playing a constructive role in promoting peace talks.

“The top priority now is to ease the situation, instead of adding fuel to the fire, and work for diplomatic settlement rather than further escalate the situation.”

Read our full story here:

War should be over by May, says Ukrainian government adviser

An adviser in the Ukraine government says the the war should be over by May because Russia will run out of resources to keep the invasion going.

Citing a video published by several Ukrainian media outlets, Reuters reports that Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, said:

I think that no later than in May, early May, we should have a peace agreement, maybe much earlier, we will see, I am talking about the latest possible dates.

We are at a fork in the road now: there will either be a peace deal struck very quickly, within a week or two, with troop withdrawal and everything, or there will be an attempt to scrape together some, say, Syrians for a round two and, when we grind them too, an agreement by mid-April or late April.

The aftermath of Russian shelling in Kyiv on Monday.
The aftermath of Russian shelling in Kyiv on Monday. Photograph: Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

The exact timing would depend on how many resources the Kremlin was willing to commit to the campaign, and whether it could risk using raw conscripts to supplement soldiers lost during the faltering Russian advance since launching the invasion on 24 February.

Arestovich’s suggestion Russia might try to use Syrian mercenaries was backed up by a report from the respected Syrian Observatory of Human Rights which says Russia has enlisted 40,000 militiamen from its Middle Eastern ally.

Nearly all of the Russian military offensives in Ukraine remain stalled after making little progress over the weekend, according to a Penatgon briefing. Russian troops are still about 15km (9 miles) from the center of Kyiv, a US defence official said, Reuters reports.

UPeople in Kyiv clean up the debris on a burned out section of a building.
UPeople in Kyiv clean up the debris on a burned out section of a building. Photograph: Marcus Yam/LOS ANGELES TIMES/REX/Shutterstock

The official noted that the US believed Russia was trying to “flow in forces behind the advance elements” moving to the north of the Ukrainian capital.

The assaults on the cities of Chernihiv and Kharkiv also remain stalled, the official said, but Russia has split off a force of 50 to 60 vehicles to move towards the town of Izium.

A satellite image of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol released by US company Maxar on Tuesday.
A satellite image of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol released by US company Maxar on Tuesday. Photograph: Maxar Technologies Handout/EPA

Ukraine continues to defend Mariupol, though the city remains isolated, they said. Russian forces have also not moved closer to the town of Mykolaiv.

An official told reporters:

We still maintain the airspace is contested, that the Russians have not achieved air superiority over all of Ukraine.

Updated

Our Today in Focus podcast is about the notorious Russian mercenary company Wagner Group.

It has has supported pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since its inception in 2014 and is now believed to be playing a major role in the invasion of the whole of Ukraine.

Officially, the company does not exist. It has no company registration, no tax returns, no recruitment office. Officially, private military companies remain illegal in Russia.

Pjortr Sauer has reported on the Wagner Group for the Guardian and he recently interviewed Marat Gabidullin, a former mercenary who joined the group in 2015.

He tells Nosheen Iqbal that Wagner is an unofficial foreign policy tool of the Kremlin.

Asian markets are struggling again, with Hong Kong tech firms leading another sharp equity selloff in the city following the Covid-19 shutdown of tech hub Shenzhen and worries over Russia’s military outreach to China, Reuters reports.

Concerns about China’s economic outlook saw oil prices suffer fresh selling pressure, with WTI falling back below $100 a week after it hit a 14-year high on the back of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Hopes for progress in talks to bring an end to the war in eastern Europe were also putting pressure on the black gold.

Global markets have been in a spiral since Russian troops marched into the neighbouring country, leading international powers to impose crippling sanctions on the country and numerous companies to pull out.

Updated

Power supply restored to Chernobyl nuclear plant

Power supply has been renewed to Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Ukraine 24 television station has said, adding that authorities had notified the International Atomic Energy Agency.

On Monday, state-owned grid operator Ukrenergo said the Chernobyl plant was relying on electricity from diesel generators after its external power supply had again been damaged.

Updated

Here is how the UK papers are reporting the war today:

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s latest address implores Russian troops to surrender. he says they “have a chance to live” if they choose to lay down their arms.

“On behalf of the Ukrainian people, we give you a chance to live. If you surrender to our forces, we will treat you as humans have to be treated: with dignity. The way you have not been treated in your army. And the way your army doesn’t treat our people. Choose.”

He also said that the war in Russia had become a “nightmare” for the Russian military because it was losing a lot of troops and equipment.

However, he said that talks with Russia would continue on Tuesday.

Summary

Hello, I’m Martin Farrer and thanks very much for joining us. Here are the main developments in the Ukraine war, including another passionate late-night address by president Volodymyr Zelenskiy:

  • Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has used his latest address to urge Russian troops to choose surrender over the “shame” of continuing with the war. Speaking partly in Russian, he said the war had become a “nightmare” for Russia and that it had now lost more soldiers in Ukraine than during both Chechen wars combined. Talks with Russia would continue on Tuesday, he said.
  • One of Zelenskiy’s advisers has claimed the war will be over “by May” because Russia was running out of troops and resources to keep the invasion going. Oleksiy Arestovich said the Kremlin could prolong it by bringing in Syrian fighters, amid reports that Russia has recruited 40,000 militiamen from its Middle East ally.
  • An employee interrupted a Russian state TV broadcast by shouting “No to war” and holding a sign that read “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.” The poster held up by Marina Ovsyannikova on Monday evening also said, in English, “Russians against the war”. Zelenskiy thanked her in his address.
  • China has already decided to provide Russia with economic and financial support during its war on Ukraine and is contemplating sending military supplies such as armed drones, US officials fear. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, laid out the US case against Russia’s invasion in an “intense” seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, pointing out that Moscow had feigned interest in diplomacy while preparing for invasion, and also that the Russian military was clearly showing signs of frailty. Earlier, it was reported that the US had told allies that China “responded positively” to a Russian request for military equipment, a claim Beijing has denied.
  • Beijing, in its version of the meeting in Rome, urged “maximum restraint” in the conflict. It did not mention the US claims but earlier described them as false.
  • “Almost all” of the Russian advances in Ukraine “remain stalled”, a senior US defence official said during a background briefing, CNN reports. Russian forces moving on Kyiv have not appreciably progressed over the weekend. A close ally of Putin, national guard chief Viktor Zolotov, blamed the slower than expected progress on what he claimed were far-right Ukrainian forces hiding behind civilians.
  • US president Joe Biden is considering travelling to Europe for in-person meetings with Nato allies, Reuters reports. Biden could meet other leaders in Brussels on 23 March and then travel to Poland, the report said.
  • A convoy of more than 160 cars departed from Mariupol, local officials said, in what appeared to be the first successful attempt to evacuate civilians from the encircled Ukrainian city. After several days of failed attempts to deliver supplies to Mariupol and provide safe passage out for trapped civilians, the city council said a local ceasefire was holding and the convoy had left for the city of Zaporizhzhia.
  • The mayor of Ukraine’s frontline city of Kharkiv said the city had been under constant attack by Russian forces, Reuters reports. Speaking on national television, Ihor Terekhov said Russian troops had fired at central districts causing an unspecified number of casualties.
  • There are reports that Russian forces blew up explosives at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine’s parliament earlier said Russian troops planned to begin “disposal” of ammunition in front of the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station.
  • Ninety children have been killed and more than 100 wounded in Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office said. “The highest number of victims are in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kherson, Mykolayiv and Zhytomyr regions,” it said in a statement.
  • Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said Russian forces were “behaving like terrorists” and Putin had started a “full-scale war” in the centre of Europe that could “become a third world war”. Addressing the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, he said Europe “chose the road of pacifying the aggressor” for years instead of “defending the values of democracy, the rule of law and human rights”.

Updated

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