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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Martin Farrer (now) Lois Beckett, Joanna Walters , Léonie Chao-Fong, Tom Ambrose , and Samantha Lock (before)

Biden considers travel to Europe – as it happened

Russia United States Ukraine United Kingdom China

Our live coverage is moving. Please find our new Ukraine blog here:

Summary

Another oligarch has had his yacht taken away, this time by authorities in Spain.

The 85-metre (279ft) superyacht Valerie, worth an estimated £140m, was seized in Barcelona where it has been docked since February.

The Valerie at Barcelona Port on 9 March.
The Valerie at Barcelona Port on 9 March. Photograph: Albert Gea/Reuters

It is believed to belong to Sergei Chemezov, a former KGB officer who heads state conglomerate Rostec, two sources told Reuters.

“Today we seized – the technical term is provisionally immobilised – a yacht belonging to one of the principal oligarchs,” Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said on La Sexta television on Monday. “We are talking about a yacht that we estimate is worth $140m.”

Multiple sources are reporting large explosions in Kyiv where the time is 5.45am.

Beijing urges 'maximum restraint'

Beijing has released its readout of the high level meeting between the US national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, and China’s foreign policy official, Yang Jiechi, in Rome overnight.

The meeting was long planned as a follow-up to the bilateral talk between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden last November, but came amid reports that Russia was requesting China supply it with weapons for its assault on Ukraine. The reports, citing US officials, were met with anger from Beijing, and were expected to be a key focus of the meeting with the US expected to urge China not to give Russia the support.

Beijing’s read out of the meeting, released a few hours ago, said Yang had urged all parties to exercise “maximum restraint”, protect civilians, and prevent a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, noting Beijing had sent humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. It also reiterated messaging from Beijing stressing there were “legitimate concerns” on all sides which should be listened to.

It said China advocated for respecting the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries”, and the history of the Ukraine issues “should be straightened out”.

“China is committed to promoting peace talks, and the international community should jointly support the Russia-Ukraine peace talks, achieve substantive results as soon as possible, and promote the cooling of the situation as soon as possible,” it said.

It also did not specifically refer to the claims of Russia’s weapons request but did reference accusations its foreign ministry had made on Monday that the US claims were false, and designed to smear China.

The US side said the meeting was “an intense seven-hour session, reflecting the gravity of the moment, as well as our commitment to maintaining open lines of communication”, but did not detail discussions about the weapons reports.

Russia has lined up more than 40,000 Syrian militiamen to join the war in Ukraine pn rthe promise of a “salary and privileges”, according to the respected Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The SOHR, which has been reporting on the war in Syria for years, said no Syrian fighters had reached the front but around 400 were undergoing training in camps in Russia close to the Ukraine border.

“So far, more than 40,000 fighters have signed up for enlistment,” said SOHR, adding that these are not “volunteers” but have signed up on promises to receive “a salary and privileges”.

A woman passes a billboard showing Russian president Vladimir Putin in Damascus, Syria, last year. The poster reads “ The victory for Russia.”
A woman passes a billboard showing Russian president Vladimir Putin in Damascus, Syria, last year. The poster reads “ The victory for Russia.” Photograph: Omar Sanadiki/AP

SOHR said recruitment is underway in Damascus and Aleppo through various Syrian government structures that have been co-opted for years by the Russian military system in Syria.

Russian forces have been fighting for years on the side of the Assad regime against rebels in the Syrian civil war.

The SOHR report tallies with comments made in the last few hours by a Ukrainian government adviser that Russia might try to bring Syrian fighters into the country because it was suffering heavy casualities.

We now have video of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s latest address in which he implores Russian troops to surrender. You can read the full speech below but here’s the most relevant section for the video:

“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.”

War should be over by May when Russia runs out of troops – Zelenskiy adviser

The war in Ukraine should be over by May because Russia will run out of resources to keep the invasion going, Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, has claimed.

Citing a video published by several Ukrainian media outlets, Reuters reports that Arestovich said the exact timing would depend on how much resources the Kremlin was willing to commit to the campaign.

“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,” Arestovich said.

Ukrainian troops drive off in a Russian tank they captured after fighting near Kyiv.
Ukrainian troops drive off in a Russian tank they captured after fighting near Kyiv. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

“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.”

A “completely crazy” scenario could also involve Russia sending fresh conscripts after a month of training, he said.

Still, even once peace is agreed, small tactical clashes could remain possible for a year, according to Arestovich, although Ukraine insists on the complete removal of Russian troops from its territory.

Updated

A bit of light relief comes from the folk at Citizenbrick, the makers of customised Lego figures.

They’ve come up with one of man-of-the-moment Volodymyr Zelenskiy, complete with a stack of Molotov cocktails.

I’ve been looking at Zelenskiy’s claims about Russian casualties in Ukraine now exceeding those suffered in the Kremlin’s two wars in Chechnya.

Ukraine reckons more than 12,000 Russians have been killed in the current conflict. The Kremlin is estimating the number at around 500.

According to some rapid reseach, the official estimate is that 5,732 Russians were killed in losing the first Chechen war between 1994 and 1996. Some estimates say the figure is more than double that.

The rubble of destroyed houses in Grozny during the first Chechen war.
The rubble of destroyed houses in Grozny during the first Chechen war.
 Photograph: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP

The official figure for the second war, which was prosecuted by Vladimir Putin between 1999 and 2009 and ended in “victory” for the Kremlin, is that 7,425 were killed, although that includes more than 1,000 Chechen police.

Updated

Here’s the final part of Zelenskiy’s address, in which he updates Ukrainians on his diplomaic efforts and says talks contin ue on Tuesday:

On March 14, we managed to evacuate 3,806 Ukrainians from [encircled] cities and towns. Our convoy of trucks with 100 tons of much needed humanitarian aid for Mariupol is still held up in Berdyansk. For a third day. However, we will keep trying to deliver food, water, and medication to the people of Mariupol. Every aggressive action of the invaders only pushes the world for more sanctions. I spoke to Ursula von der Leyen, Andrzej Duda, Xavier Bettel. There’s 100% of mutual understanding. I spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Bennett as part of negotiations effort to finish this war as soon as possible with honest peace. Our delegation has also worked on it at the talks with the Russian side. Pretty well, as it was reported to me. But we will see. They will continue tomorrow.

Cabinet of ministers approved a support package for the economy and businesses so that people had work where it is safe. We are launching a fiscal reform. Instead of an added-value tax and income tax, we will introduce a 2% turnover tax and simplified accounting. For small businesses, individual entrepreneurs, we make the payment of the unified tax voluntary. If you can, pay. You can’t, no questions. Secondly, maximum deregulation of business. We cancel all state inspections for all businesses so that they keep working and everyplace where there is no fighting continued to live. We have only on condition: You have to ensure your business operates within the Ukrainian law. And it’s only the beginning of our fiscal reform.

[In the end he said he signed an order to award Ukrainian soldiers]

More from Zelenskiy’s latest address, in which he also claims that Russia has lost more troops in Ukraine than it did in two Chechen wars. “What for?” he asks.

As we noted earlier, he also thanked the Russian TV worker who interrupted a broadcast on Channel One on Monday night with an anti-war protest.

[In Ukrainian]: Our brave defenders continue causing the Russian forces devastating losses. Very soon, the number of downed Russian helicopters will reach 100. They have already lost 80 military places, hundreds of tanks, thousands of other military vehicles and equipment. In 19 days, the Russian army had more soldiers killed than in two bloody wars in Chechnya. What for?

[In Russian] I’m thankful to those Russians who don’t stop trying to deliver the truth, who are fighting against disinformation and tell real facts to their friends and families, and personally to that woman who went in the studio of Channel One with an anti-war poster. Those who aren’t afraid to protest. As long as your country isn’t completely closed from the rest of the world, turning into a huge North Korea, you have to fight, you don’t have to miss your chance.

[In Ukrainian] The EU has approved the fourth package of sanctions against Russia. I’m sure it’s not the last one. We are working with partners on new restrictions that will be imposed against Russia. Every person who is responsible for the war, who is responsible for destroying a democracy and repressions against people. Everyone will get a retaliation from the world. And it’s only the beginning. Accountability for war crimes is inevitable. Accountability for deliberately manufactured humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine is inevitable. The whole world is seeing what’s happening in Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy, Okhtyrka, Hostomel, Irpin. All our partners are informed about crimes of the occupants against civilians and local governments in Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.

'Choose dignity': Zelenskiy urges Russian troops to surrender

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has used his latest address to urge Russian troops to choose giving up arms over the “shame” of continuing with the war.

Speaking in Russian, Zelenskiy said: “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.”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Photograph: Telegram

He also said the war had become a “nightmare” for the Russians,and claimed that their troops were fleeing the battlefield and leaving arms and equipment for the Ukrainians.

Here is the first part of his speech. It’s a long address so I’ll post the rest in two more chunks.

Free people of the free country, the 19th day of our resistance has come to end. Another hard day that made us closer to the victory and peace for Ukraine. As before, the enemy is perplexed. They didn’t expect such resistance. They believed their propaganda that lied about us for decades.

They still can’t recover but have begun realizing that they won’t achieve anything by war. Their soldiers know it. Their officers understand it. They flee from the battlefield, leaving behind their vehicles and equipment. We take the trophies and use them for defence of Ukraine. Russian forces have de-facto become a supplier of equipment for our army. They couldn’t imagine it in a nightmare.

[In Russian] I want to tell Russian soldiers, those who have already entered our lands and those who are only being sent to fight against us. Russian conscripts, please, listen to me attentively. Russian officers, you have already understood everything. You won’t be able to take anything from Ukraine. You will take lives – you are many – but yours will be taken too.

What are you dying for? I know, you want to survive. We hear in your intercepted calls what you really think of this war, of this shame, and of your state. Your conversations with each other, your calls home to your families, we hear everything. We make conclusions. We know who you are. That’s why I offer you a choice: 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.

Updated

Our world affairs editor Julian Borger has just filed more on the US-China talks in Rome, saying that Washington fears Beijing has already decided to supply aid to Russia.

Yang Jiechi (first left), a member of the Chinese politburo, sits opposite US national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Rome on Monday.
Yang Jiechi (first left), a member of the Chinese politburo, sits opposite US national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Rome on Monday. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

He writes:

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.

“The key here is first to get China to recalculate and re-evaluate their position. We see no sign of that re-evaluation,” said a US official familiar with the discussions. “They’ve already decided that they’re going to provide economic and financial support, and they underscored that today. The question really is whether they will go further.”

Here’s the full story:

Updated

Russia-Ukraine talks will continue on Tuesday, says Zelenskiy

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his latest address on Monday that negotiations with Russia are to continue on Tuesday.

Zelenskiy also said he spoke with Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett as part of a negotiation effort to end the war with Russia “with a fair peace”.

“Our delegation also worked on this in negotiations with the Russian party,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “Pretty good, as I was told. But let’s see. They will continue tomorrow.”

And here’s a video showing Marina Ovsyannikova’s brave protest. Human rights groups say she has been arrested.

Zelenskiy thanks Russian antiwar protester

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has thanked the Russian TV employee who interrupted a broadcast on Monday night to shout out “No to war”. Marina Ovsyannikova also held up a placard saying “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here”.

Russian state television employee Marina Ovsyannikova made a pre-recorded video statement before bursting onto a live television broadcast to protest Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Russian state television employee Marina Ovsyannikova made a pre-recorded video statement before bursting onto a live television broadcast to protest Russia’s war on Ukraine. Composite: Channel One Russia | Marina Ovsyannikova

Zelenskiy said he was “thankful” to her and others “trying to deliver the truth”:

I’m thankful to those Russians who don’t stop trying to deliver the truth, who are fighting against disinformation and tell real facts to their friends and families, and personally to that woman who went in the studio of Channel One with an anti-war poster.

Those who aren’t afraid to protest. As long as your country isn’t completely closed from the rest of the world, turning into a huge North Korea, you have to fight, you don’t have to miss your chance.”

Here is a link to the untranslated version of the address. We’ll have more on what he said once we get the full translation.

Updated

Still on economics, and the price of oil slipped more than 5% during Monday’s session and could come under more pressure in Tuesday’s trading. The prospect of more constructive talks between Russia and Ukraine was the reason, according to analysts.

Brent futures – the international benchmark – fell 5.1% to settle at $106.90 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 5.8% to settle at $103.01.

Good chart here shows how much it has fallen from the recent peak last Monday:

The economic squeeze on Russia remains one of the key battlegrounds of the war and a US treasury official has told Reuters that a possible Russian sovereign debt default would add further pain to the country and its financial system.

A sovereign default basically means that a country can’t repay the debts it owes on bonds sold on the open market. As you might expect if you didn’t pay your debts, it means borrowing new money is much harder and way more expensive. Although given reports about requests for arms supplies from China, Russia might find a lender across its eastern border.

The IMF chief has repeated her view that a Russian default was not “improbable” but would not cause another 2008-style financial crash.

Summary

Hello, I’m Martin Farrer taking over the blog from Lois Beckett. Thanks very much for joining us and to make sure we’re all on the same page here are the main developments you need to know about:

  • The United States told allies that Russia has requested military equipment from China, including missiles, drones, and armoured vehicles, and that China “responded positively” to the request, the Financial Times reports. China denies the story. The US is believed to have told Beijing it would be a “historic mistake” during an “intense” session of talks in Rome on Monday.
  • An employee of Russian 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”.
  • “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 today, 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.
  • A Russian airstrike hit a residential building in Kyiv as Moscow’s forces stepped up their brutal campaign to capture Ukraine’s capital and other major cities. One person was found dead in the nine-storey apartment building, officials said, with three more people hospitalised as air raid sirens sounded in the capital and other cities hours before Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were set to resume talks.
  • The Antonov aircraft plant in Kyiv was shelled by Russian forces, the Kyiv city administration said in an update on its official Telegram account on Monday morning. At least two people were killed and seven injured, it said.
  • Ukrainian authorities have denied accusations by Russia after a Ukrainian missile allegedly exploded in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk killing 20 civilians. Ukrainian military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin said the missile, that carried warhead shrapnel, was in fact a Russian rocket. The Russian and Ukrainian claims cannot be independently verified.
  • 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.
  • At least nine people were reportedly killed and nine more wounded in an airstrike on a television tower in Ukraine’s northern Rivne region today. “There are still people under the rubble,” governor Vitaliy Koval said in an online post, Reuters reports.
  • 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”.

New Zealand says it will take 4,000 family members of its current Ukrainian residents

New Zealand will take 4,000 family members of Ukrainian residents, as part of its humanitarian response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This is the largest special visa category we have ever established to support an international humanitarian effort,” Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi said.

“Our Ukrainian community in New Zealand has ... asked us to help in sheltering their family members who have been forced to flee their homes due to Russia’s unprovoked attack,” he said. “It’s a two-year visa to help people escape the current conflict and to shelter here in the hope they can return home when the war ends.”

The policy will be open for a year and allow the estimated 1,600 Ukrainian-born citizens and residents in New Zealand to sponsor parents, grandparents and adult siblings or adult children and their immediate family who are ordinarily resident in Ukraine to shelter in New Zealand.

More than 2 million people have fled the war in Ukraine.

Updated

Is Russian corruption behind Russia’s reported requests for Chinese military rations?

Earlier today, CNN reported that the US believes Russia has asked China for multiple forms of military assistance, including a very basic one: readymade meals soldiers can eat while on the march.

Two Bellingcat journalists highlighted previous reporting about the government contracts to provide food to Russia’s defense ministry, and raised questions about whether corruption might be responsible for Russia’s reported lack of preparedness in feeding its own military forces.

Updated

The UK’s Ministry of Defence says Russia could be planning to use chemical or biological weapons in ‘faked attack’

Britain’s Ministry of Defence tweeted on Monday that Russia could be planning to use chemical or biological weapons in a “faked attack” in Ukraine, or in a “staged ‘discovery’” of biological agents or munitions.

Russia continues to make accusations about Ukraine’s intention of using chemical or biological weapons, but it has seen “no evidence to support these accusations,” the British Ministry of Defence wrote.

In this context, Russia “could possibly be planning” a “false-flag” operation, involving a staged attack or discovery of biological or chemical weapons, the defence ministry wrote. This kind of incident would likely be accompanied by “extensive disinformation,” the ministry wrote, designed to make it difficult to attribute who was actually responsible for the situation.

Updated

Russian state TV employee’s protest makes global headlines, even as she is detained

Marina Ovsyannikova interrupted a Russian state TV broadcast on Monday evening by shouting “No to war” and holding a sign that read “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.” The poster also said, in English, “Russians against the war.”

Her solitary protest has made the front page of tomorrow’s Guardian.

Ovsyannikova was quickly detained. She released a pre-recorded video saying she was ashamed of her year spent working to spread Kremlin propaganda and contributing to the “zombification of the Russian people.”

Russia has asked China for pre-packaged meals to feed soldiers, CNN reports

Amid reports that Russia has asked China for military equipment, including missiles, drones, and armored vehicles, is a telling detail: Russia has also asked China for help feeding its troops, CNN reports.

Russia’s request for Chinese military support included a request for nonperishable food, known in the US context as “meals, ready-to-eat,” or MREs, CNN reports.

The request “raises questions about the fundamental readiness of the Russian military,” CNN reports.

US expresses 'deep concerns' on Russia-China 'alignment:' AFP

The United States expressed concern Monday about “alignment” between Russia and China, after high-ranking US and Chinese officials met for seven hours on the Ukraine war and other security issues, Agence France-Presse reported.

“We do have deep concerns about China’s alignment with Russia,” a senior US official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding: “It was a very candid conversation.”

Read more details on the “intense” high-level talks between Chinese and America officials in Rome today:

Updated

Russia has asked China for missiles, drones, armoured vehicles: Financial Times

The United States told allies that Russia has requested military gear from China, including missiles, drones, and armoured vehicles, and that China “responded positively” to the request, the Financial Times reports.

Financial Times journalist Demetri Sevastopulo also reported that the European allies who received this information have asked the United States to share the underlying intelligence that they are using to reach this conclusion.

It’s not clear from the United States’ cables to allies if China is already providing the requested support, or has simply pledged to do so, the Financial Times reported.

Citing US officials familiar with the intelligence under discussion, CNN reported that “ It is not yet clear whether China intends to provide Russia with that assistance.”

Updated

‘Living a nightmare:’ daily life in a Russian-occupied Ukrainian town

My colleague Shaun Walkers and Isobel Koshiw have a report on the situation in Berdyansk, a city in southern Ukraine, which has been controlled by Russian troops for the past two weeks.

Local residents and city officials in occupied cities such as Berdyansk are not facing airstrikes, but they are facing waves of propaganda. The local radio station plays Soviet ballads and Russian pop songs, interspersed with excerpts from Vladimir Putin’s speeches and news items about Ukraine being “liberated from Nazis,” they report.

“We feel like we’re living a nightmare, and we don’t know when this awful dream will end,” said one local councillor in the city, who asked to remain anonymous, citing security fears. “We still can’t believe that this could have happened.”

While some residents in occupied towns are staging public protests, Walker and Koshiw report, acts of resistance come with significant risk. In nearby Melitopol, another occupied town, a defiant mayor was reportedly kidnapped by Russian soldiers on Friday night, marched from his office with a bag over his head, and has not been heard from since. Read the full story here:

Updated

Biden may go to Europe to meet with allies about Ukraine: Reuters

The Biden administration is discussing whether Biden should travel to Europe for in-person meetings with Nato allies, Reuters reports:

White House officials are discussing the possibility of US President Joe Biden traveling to Europe in the coming weeks to discuss Russia and Ukraine with allies, two sources familiar with the situation said on Monday.

One plan under discussion calls for Biden to meet with other leaders from the Nato alliance in Brussels on 23 March and then travel to Poland, said one of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity since details were still being finalised.

No final decision has been made about the trip, one of the sources said.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said that the United States was closely engaged with its Nato partners and European allies but that there had not been any final decision about a trip.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February, the biggest attack on a European state since World War II, the United States and its allies have coordinated broad sanctions against Moscow and President Vladimir Putin as punishment.

Updated

This live blog now hands over from the US east coast to the US west coast, where our colleague Lois Beckett will take the baton and bring you the latest developments over the next few hours.

The blog will then be taken on by our team in Australia, as 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 Pentagon continues to praise the tenacious fight-back by Ukraine against the much-larger military force at Russia’s disposal.

John Kirby, the spokesman for the Department of Defense, in Washington, DC, a little earlier said that Ukrainian forces “continue to fight bravely and skillfully” and were using to maximum advantage possible their “knowledge and situational awareness” against Russia’s multi-pronged attacks.

Kirby called out “how little progress the Russians have been able to make” in the almost three weeks “they have been at this” and he said that Ukraine was making “good use” of extra military equipment supplied by the US and other nations.

Worth reminding here that the US and its Nato allies have refused to acquiesce to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenzkiy’s repeated pleas to impose a no-fly zone over his skies, because of the risk of wider war precipitated by Nato pilots inevitably being obliged to engage with and shoot down Russian aircraft.

Old Nato fighter jets have also not been supplied to Ukraine after a disagreement between Poland and the US about how such an arrangement would work and what it would risk.

Kirby earlier today said of the relatively limited progress by Russia that: “A lot of this is due to their own stumbles and missteps but a lot of it, a lot of it, is down to the Ukrainian resistance and how adaptive they are proving to be in the field and on the streets.”

A soldier stands by a trolleybus wrecked by a cruise missile downed by the Ukrainian air defence force in Kurenivka neighbourhood, Kyiv, capital of Ukraine. One person died and six were injured as a result of the incident earlier today.
A soldier stands by a trolleybus wrecked by a cruise missile downed by the Ukrainian air defence force in Kurenivka neighbourhood, Kyiv, capital of Ukraine. One person died and six were injured as a result of the incident earlier today. Photograph: Yuliia Ovsiannikova/Ukrinform/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

The United States has held “intense” high-level talks with China in an effort to try to dissuade Beijing from supplying arms to Russia, at a meeting in Rome which the White House sees as critically important not just for the war in Ukraine but also for the future of the global balance of power.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Kremlin in Moscow, 2019.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Kremlin in Moscow, 2019. Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, met his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, for all-day talks in the Italian capital on Monday amid reports that Russia has asked China for weapons to bolster its faltering invasion of Ukraine.

“It was an intense seven-hour session, reflecting the gravity of the moment, as well as our commitment to maintaining open lines of communication,” a senior administration official said.

“This meeting was not about negotiating specific issues or outcomes, but about a candid direct exchange of views.”

Asked if it had been successful, the official replied: “I suppose it depends on how you define success, but we believe that it is important to keep open lines of communication between the United States and China, especially on areas where we disagree.”

The official would not describe the Chinese response to US arguments in Rome, nor comment on reports that the US had briefed allies on Monday, before the meeting, that Beijing had shown willingness to provide military assistance to Russia.

The Rome meeting had been planned since before the Russian invasion, and covered other topics, including North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and Taiwan.

China reacted angrily to the reports in multiple media outlets citing US officials. Its foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said the US was spreading “malicious disinformation”, with “sinister intentions”, according to translations by journalists in the room.

The rest of this report is here.

Meanwhile: “It was an intense seven-hour session, reflecting the gravity of the moment, as well as our commitment to maintaining open lines of communication,” a senior administration official said. “This meeting was not about negotiating specific issues or outcomes, but about a candid, direct exchange of views.”

Asked if it had been successful, the official replied: “I suppose it depends on how you define success, but we believe that it is important to keep open lines of communication between the United States and China, especially on areas where we disagree.”

The official would not describe the Chinese response to US arguments in Rome, nor comment on reports that the US had briefed allies on Monday, before the meeting, that Beijing had shown willingness to provide military assistance to Russia. The Rome meeting had been planned since before the Russian invasion, and covered other topics, including North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and Taiwan.

Updated

More on the anti-war protest on live TV news in Russia by Channel 1 employee Marina Ovsyannikova, who burst on screen holding a sign and had also pre-recorded a statement.

That statement also included her saying of the invasion of Ukraine: “The responsibility of this aggression lies on the shoulders of only one person, Vladimir Putin,” she said, referring to the Russian president.

Ovsyannikova’s father is Ukranian. She also urged Russians to attend anti-war protests in the country to demand an end to the war, despite crackdowns on protesters.

“Only we have the power to stop all this craziness…They cannot put us all in prison,” she said.

A delivery courier rides a bicycle past the graffiti on a fence which reads: “Putin stop war”, today in Moscow.
A delivery courier rides a bicycle past the graffiti on a fence which reads: “Putin stop war”, today in Moscow. Photograph: Contributor/8523328/Getty Images

OVD-Info rights group said that Ovsyannikova had been detained in Moscow shortly after her protest.

Ovsyannikova could face prison time under newly-introduced Russian legislation which criminalised spreading anything deemed ‘fake news’ about the Russian military. Those found guilty under the law could face up to 15 years in jail.

She could also face legal consequences for encouraging “civil unrest” by telling Russians to protest.

“Wow, that girl is cool,” Kira Yarmysh, spokeswoman for jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, wrote on Twitter, Reuters reported.

Russian state television has largely portrayed Russia’s invasion into Ukraine as a defensive “special military operation” aimed at “liberating” Ukraine and protecting citizens in the Donbas area annexed by Russia from what Putin falsely alleges to be Ukrainian “genocide.”

Russia has meanwhile moved to ban Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as number of independent Russian outlets that have critically reported on the war.

Updated

A Russian TV news staffer launched an audacious lone anti-war protest on live television a little earlier.

The employee, from the Russian state-run Channel One, burst onto the set of the live broadcast of the nightly news on Monday evening, shouting: “Stop the war! No to war!”

The protester, who was identified by Russian media as Channel One employee Marina Ovsyannikova, was also holding a sign in Russian which can be interpreted as: “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.”

Ovsyannikova recorded a separate message beforehand in which she said she was “ashamed to be” a Channel One employee.

“What is happening in Ukraine is a crime and Russia is the aggressor,” said Ovsyannikova, adding that her father was Ukrainian.

It appeared that producers scrambled to cut her off during the live news broadcast.

Updated

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has announced that it will rule this Wednesday in the case brought by Ukraine that Russia falsely justified its invasion by making accusations that Ukraine had engaged in genocide.

Kyiv filed the case at the ICJ, the United Nations’ top court, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, demanding that the tribunal order an end to the offensive, Agence France-Presse reports.

AFP further writes that Ukraine:

Accuses Russia of illegally trying to justify its war under an international convention by falsely alleging that Ukraine committed genocide in regions held by pro-Russian separatists.

Russia declined to turn up to a hearing at the United Nations court on 7 March.

The court in The Hague, in the Netherlands, said in a statement it would announce its judgment on Wednesday at 1500 GMT.

The ICJ was set up after World War II to rule on disputes between UN member states, based mainly on treaties and conventions.

Although its rulings are binding, it has no real means to enforce them.

The case is separate from a Ukraine war crimes investigation launched by the International Criminal Court (ICC), a different, intergovernmental, international tribunal, also based in The Hague that typically tries individuals accused of war crimes.

Updated

A poignant note of defiance comes from, of all places, the Eurovision song contest.

The organisers of the international annual music competition have announced that Ukraine will participate in this year’s contest, in May, Agence France-Presse reports.

The contest is in Italy’s northern city of Turin this year. Russia had already been disinvited.

Eurovision song contest winner in 2016, Susana Jamaladinova.
Eurovision song contest winner in 2016, Susana Jamaladinova. Photograph: Ozan Köse/AFP/Getty Images

AFP further reports:

Eurovision executive producer Simona Martorelli said the delegation from Ukraine had confirmed and sent in all required materials, even on time.

“This is absolutely admirable, given the situation,” Martorelli said.

Ukraine’s pick this year is the Kalush Orchestra, with the rap lullaby Stefania.

Sung to a mother, the song incorporates traditional Ukrainian music and includes the line: “I’ll always find my way home even if all the roads are destroyed.”

Martorelli added that the artists would try to tape a “backup video” required by all those invited to the contest in case they cannot participate live.

“Hopefully they will be able to make it,” Martorelli said.

Eurovision’s executive board decided on 25 February - the day after Russia invaded Ukraine - to exclude Russia from this year’s contest.

The flamboyant annual musical event, which has millions of viewers in Europe and even Australia, is scheduled for 10-14 May in Turin. Organizers said this year’s contest would focus on the theme of peace.

Updated

More details on a Fox News journalist injured earlier today while working in Ukraine.

The US rightwing TV news channel reports that its correspondent Benjamin Hall has been wounded “while news gathering” not far from the capital Kyiv.

Fox says so far it has “minimal” details and the journalist is in hospital.

The US department of defence’s John Kirby, now holding a press conference in Washington, DC, expressed concern and thoughts for Hall. He also paid tribute, noting that “there are journalists from around the world trying to uncover the truth” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Updated

Summary

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

  • “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 but 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 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.
  • A Russian airstrike hit a residential building in Kyiv as Moscow’s forces stepped up their brutal campaign to capture Ukraine’s capital and other major cities. One person was found dead in the nine-storey apartment building, officials said, with three more people hospitalised as air raid sirens sounded in the capital and other cities hours before Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were set to resume talks.
  • The Antonov aircraft plant in Kyiv was shelled by Russian forces, the Kyiv city administration said in an update on its official Telegram account on Monday morning. At least two people were killed and seven injured, it said.
  • Ukrainian authorities have denied accusations by Russia after a Ukrainian missile allegedly exploded in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk killing 20 civilians. Ukrainian military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin said the missile, that carried warhead shrapnel, was in fact a Russian rocket. The Russian and Ukrainian claims cannot be independently verified.
  • 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.
  • At least nine people were reportedly killed and nine more wounded in an airstrike on a television tower in Ukraine’s northern Rivne region today. “There are still people under the rubble,” governor Vitaliy Koval said in an online post, Reuters reports.
  • 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.
  • A convoy of more than 160 cars departed from Mariupol today, 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.
  • 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”.
  • Vladimir Putin’s decision to order Russian nuclear forces to be put on high alert is a “bone-chilling development”, United Nations chief António Guterres said. The UN secretary general said a further $40m (£30.7m) would be allocated to ramp up humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
  • A close ally of Putin has admitted Russia’s military operation in Ukraine has not gone as quickly as the Kremlin had wanted, Reuters reports. National guard chief Viktor Zolotov blamed the slower than expected progress on what he claimed were far-right Ukrainian forces hiding behind civilians, an accusation repeatedly made by Russian officials.

That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, for today. I’m handing over to my colleague Joanna Walters who will continue to bring you all the latest developments from the war in Ukraine. Goodbye for now.

Updated

France has denied it breached European sanctions by continuing to sell military equipment to Russia after its 2014 annexation of Crimea, AFP reports.

Around €152m euros (£128m) of gear had been approved for export since 2015, investigative journalism outfit Disclose reported, citing “top secret” documents and public sources.

Most of the equipment was “thermal cameras to equip more than 1,000 Russian tanks, as well as navigation systems and infrared sensors for fighter planes and helicopters” manufactured by Thales and Safran, companies whose largest shareholder is the French state, Disclose said.

Tanks and aircraft of the types involved had been used in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since 24 February, it added.

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the European Union imposed arms sanctions. But successive governments “made the most of a chink in the European embargo: it isn’t retroactive,” Disclose charged.

In response, French defence ministry spokesperson Herve Grandjean said:

France complies strictly with its international engagements as concerns exports of military equipment.

Nevertheless, the so-called “grandfather” clause meant that “a contract signed before the annexation of Crimea can run its course... this possibility is clearly provided for in the sanctions regime,” he added.

No new contracts have been made with Russia since 2014. No deliveries have been made to Russia since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

The US state department spokesman, Ned Price, has been speaking about the Rome meeting between the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi.

The meeting had not finished by the time Price began his briefing, so he did not have a readout on the results, but he said:

The national security adviser and our delegation raised directly and very clearly, our concerns about the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] support to Russia in the wake of the invasion, and the implications that any such support would have for the PRC’s relationship not only with us, but for its relationships around the world, that includes our allies and partners in Europe, and in the Indo Pacific.

Members of the Chinese diplomatic delegation leave the Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria hotel in Rome on March 14, 2022 where US president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with senior Chinese Communist Party diplomat Yang Jiechi.
Members of the Chinese diplomatic delegation leave the Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria hotel in Rome on March 14, 2022 where US president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with senior Chinese Communist Party diplomat Yang Jiechi. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images

A Fox News journalist has been injured outside of Kyiv, Fox News reported on Monday, Maya Yang writes.

According to the network, there are still “very few details but teams on the ground are working as hard as they can to try to gather more information”.

The reports come after the Facebook page of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Irina Venediktova, announced on Monday that a British journalist has been seriously wounded in Ukraine and is currently in “intensive care under the supervision of doctors.”

The post added:

This man was not at a military facility, where according to Russian officials, they are constantly targeting. Not being at a military facility, he suffered serious injuries.

The information surrounding the case is being brought to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau where it “will be properly investigated,” according to the prosecutor.

Accompanying the post is a picture of congressional press accreditation that said “Radio & TV” and “Fox News.” The accreditation features an image of a Caucasian male in a suit with the date “3/31/2022” written underneath.

Air raid sirens sent people running for shelter in Ukraine’s besieged south-eastern city of Mariupol on Sunday as the Russian defence ministry said its forces had advanced 11km (7 miles) and reached five towns north of the city – a claim Ukraine denied.

Drone footage posted by Ukraine’s Azov battalion on social media showed a powerful explosion destroying a high-rise building on Monday.

The footage shared by the special forces unit, which includes members of a far-right political group, also showed fires blazing and thick, dark plumes of smoke rising from several buildings in the city.

No discussions are taking place about the possibility of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden, Russian state news agency Tass cited Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying.

It comes as multiple sources said White House officials are having early discussions about having President Biden travel to Europe in the coming weeks, as reported by NBC News.

The trip, which would focus on the war in Ukraine and aim to reassure US allies in the region, would come on the heels of visits by several top aides, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

One US official said Brussels is under consideration as a possible location. The White House is also exploring a potential stop in Poland as well as other places in Europe, CNN cited a person familiar with the planning.

Locals carry sandbags to bolster Ukraine’s defences, in Odesa.
Locals carry sandbags to bolster Ukraine’s defences, in Odesa. Photograph: Nacho Doce/Reuters

Updated

Ukraine is working on obtaining some of the seized assets of Russia, said the minister of finance, Sergei Marchenko, during an information telethon.

“I would not like to disclose details right now, but such work is under way. On sanctions, we also joined. We are working with leading investment banks. Already leading banks, in particular Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and other banks have actually stopped operations in Russia, they are withdrawing from assets, and this is quite painful for the aggressor economy,” he said.

Anton Herashchenko, official adviser and a former deputy minister at Ukraine’s ministry of internal affairs, said the total value of the seized assets was equivalent to $415bn (£319bn).

Updated

'Almost all' of the Russian advances in Ukraine 'remain stalled', US defence official says

Russian forces moving on Kyiv have not appreciably progressed over the weekend, a senior US defence official said during a background briefing with reporters, CNN reports.

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.

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.

Vladimir Putin has “100% of his assembled forces inside Ukraine”, the official said.

From the Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe:

Updated

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.

They’re firing at us constantly.

A view of destruction in the city of Kharkiv after Russian attacks on Ukraine.
A view of destruction in the city of Kharkiv after Russian attacks on Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Rescuers work next to a building damaged by an airstrike in Kharkiv.
Rescuers work next to a building damaged by an airstrike in Kharkiv. Photograph: Reuters

Updated

Summary

It is almost 7.10pm in Ukraine. Here’s where we stand now:

  • A Russian airstrike hit a residential building in Kyiv as Moscow’s forces stepped up their brutal campaign to capture Ukraine’s capital and other major cities. One person was found dead in the nine-storey apartment building, officials said, with three more people hospitalised as air raid sirens sounded in the capital and other cities hours before Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were set to resume talks.
  • The Antonov aircraft plant in Kyiv was shelled by Russian forces, the Kyiv city administration said in an update on its official Telegram account on Monday morning. At least two people were killed and seven injured, it said.
  • Ukrainian authorities have denied accusations by the Russians after a Ukrainian missile allegedly exploded in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk killing 20 civilians. Ukrainian military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin said the missile, that carried shrapnel warhead, was in fact a Russian rocket. The Russian and Ukrainian claims cannot be independently verified.
  • 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.
  • At least nine people were reportedly killed and nine more wounded in an airstrike on a television tower in Ukraine’s northern Rivne region today. “There are still people under the rubble,” governor Vitaliy Koval said in an online post, Reuters reports.
  • 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.
  • A convoy of more than 160 cars departed from Mariupol today, 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.
  • 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”.
  • Vladimir Putin’s decision to order Russian nuclear forces to be put on high alert is a “bone-chilling development”, United Nations chief António Guterres said. The UN secretary-general said a further $40m (£30.7m) would be allocated to ramp up humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
  • A close ally of Putin has admitted Russia’s military operation in Ukraine has not gone as quickly as the Kremlin had wanted, Reuters reports. National guard chief Viktor Zolotov blamed the slower than expected progress on what he claimed were far-right Ukrainian forces hiding behind civilians, an accusation repeatedly made by Russian officials.

Updated

Firefighter carries a cat that was rescued from a flat in residential building that was hit by a shell, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in the Obolon district in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Firefighter carries a cat that was rescued from a flat in residential building that was hit by a shell, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in the Obolon district in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock
Thick black smoke rising into the sky is seen from the village of Kalynivka.
Thick black smoke rising into the sky is seen from the village of Kalynivka. Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

Updated

At least nine people were killed and nine more wounded in an air strike on a television tower in Ukraine’s northern Rivne region on Monday, governor Vitaliy Koval said.

“There are still people under the rubble,” he said in an online post, Reuters reports.

Ukrainian authorities have denied accusations by the Russians after a Ukrainian missile allegedly exploded in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk killing 20 civilians, Lorenzo Tondo reports.

On Monday, Russian defence ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that ‘’a Soviet-made Tochka-U missile hit the central part of the eastern city of Donetsk’’ after it was intercepted by the pro-Russian rebels’ forces.

According to Russian-backed separatists, cited by Russia’s TASS news agency, fragments of the missile landed in the city centre, killing 20 people. Another 28 civilians, including children, were seriously wounded by the missile, Konashenkov added, describing the attack as a “war crime”.

“People were waiting in line near an ATM and were standing at a bus stop,” local separatist leader Denis Pushilin told the Rossiya 24 network. “There are children among the dead,”

However, Ukrainian military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin denied the accusations, saying that the missile, that carried shrapnel warhead, was in fact a Russian rocket.

“It is unmistakably a Russian rocket or another munition, there’s not even any point talking about it,” Matyukhin told the press.

Note: the Russian and Ukrainian claims cannot be independently verified.

The UK’s levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, has shared details about the “homes for Ukraine” scheme being set up to allow people to put up Ukrainian refugees in their homes.

Speaking in the Commons, Gove said the number of Ukrainians arriving in the UK was “rapidly increasing”.

The new scheme would allow more people to come, he said, and would benefit Ukrainians with no families ties with the UK. Ukrainians with close relatives in the country can use the existing visa system.

For more live updates from the UK, head over to our UK politics blog with Andrew Sparrow.

Updated

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, confirmed on Monday that a fourth round of talks with Russia was under way via video link.

The presidential adviser and negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said in a tweet that the talks would be on “peace, ceasefire, immediate withdrawal of troops [and] security guarantees”.

Podolyak later said talks had taken a “technical pause” and would resume tomorrow.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to order Russian nuclear forces to be put on high alert is a “bone-chilling development”, United Nations chief António Guterres said.

Speaking in New York, the UN secretary-general said the once “unthinkable” prospect of nuclear conflict was back within the realm of possibility.

He added that the UN will allocate a further $40 million from its Central Emergency Response fund to ramp up humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

The funds will help get critical supplies of food, water, medicines and other vital supplies into the country, as well as providing cash assistance to those in need, he said.

Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres speaks to press about war in Ukraine at the Security Council Stakeout of UN headquarters in New York City, United States on March 14, 2022.
Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres speaks to press about war in Ukraine Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Updated

Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal has urged the Council of Europe to expel Russia from its ranks in what would be a historic first at the human-rights body, Jennifer Rankin reports.

Addressing parliamentarians from across Europe via video link at an emergency meeting of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Shmyhal said:

The right to life is one of the key fundamental rights and today at the centre of Europe this right is being violated every minute and every second.

Ukraine demanded Russia to be ousted from the Council of Europe, he said, because they could not stay “in this single European family where human life is the highest value”.

Russia announced on Friday it would leave the Council of Europe, shortly before it was stripped of its voting rights. But no country has ever been expelled from the human rights body, founded in the ashes of world war two in 1949.

The Ukrainian prime minister criticised the Council of Europe for reinstating Russia’s voting rights in 2019, after relations were restored in a decision that attempted to draw a line under the seizure of Crimea in 2014. The decision to bring Russia back “showed a poor understanding by the world of the real threat that Putin’s regime is”, he said, adding that Europe had chosen “the road of pacifying the aggressor rather than defending the values of democracy, the rule of law, of human rights”.

After the annexation of Crimea, many governments baulked at expelling Russia completely because they did not wish to deny Russians the protection of the European Court of Human Rights.

Ukraine could also lose a legal avenue to pursue Russia, but Shmyhal said the Kremlin could not hide from the consequences of its actions: “We all know that punishment for genocide and terrorism cannot be avoided.”

He repeated Ukraine’s pleas for a no-fly zone, that Nato countries have so far refused, in a speech that recounted the appalling toll of the war on Ukrainian civilians. Almost 90 children had been killed, he said, and thousands of people were without food, water and heat; hundreds of schools and hospitals had been destroyed and nuclear power plants were “on the brink of disaster”.

Citizens in Crimea were being forcibly conscripted into the army of the “enemy state”, he said, adding one anecdote without additional details:

A Russian military pilot is dropping bombs on his own mother in Poltava region. It’s hard to believe that, but even such crazy things become normal life for the aggressors .

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenkskiy had been due to address the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe earlier on Monday but pulled out due to “urgent unforeseen circumstances” and asked the prime minister to take his place.

The Council of Europe is due to take a decision on Russia’s future in the organisation on Tuesday.

A live video speech by Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, seen on the screen, Monday, March 14, 2022 in Strasbourg, eastern France.
A live video speech by Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal Photograph: Jean-François Badias/AP

Updated

Russian forces blow up explosives near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, reports say

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.

Updated

Ukraine's PM warns conflict "can become a third world war"

Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal, who has been addressing the Council of Europe, says Vladimir Putin has started a “full-scale war” in the centre of Europe that “can become a Third World War”.

He called for Council members to approve a no fly zone over Ukraine “to defend all of Europe”.

We are asking – we are demanding – to close the skies over Ukraine for the sake of millions of people in Ukraine. For the sake of European and world security.

Shmyhal also thanked “from the bottom of my heart” Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Lithuania and other European countries for their support and for giving shelter to Ukrainians who have fled the war and violence.

Updated

EU agrees to freeze Roman Abramovich's assets – diplomatic sources

The EU is to sanction Roman Abramovich and other oligarchs in its latest round of punishment of Russian billionaires who have been seen as supporting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, AFP cites three diplomatic sources as saying.

Abramovich and the others are being added to a list of individuals whose assets in the EU - including superyachts and mansions - can be seized and entry into the bloc refused, the diplomats said.

According to one source, the stated reason for sanctioning Abramovich was because he “is a Russian oligarch who has long and close ties to Vladimir Putin,” to whom he has “privileged access”.

Sanctions will be effective only after publication on the EU’s official journal, which usually happens within hours or the day following formal approval.

Updated

In a virtual address to the Council of Europe, Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal says Russia is forcing people in Crimea to serve in the Russian armed forces.

He says:

Today the Russian government is mobilising the residents of Crimea to the armed forces of Russia, forcing people who are to be protected by the Fourth Geneva Convention to serve in the armed forces of the enemy state.

Russian military pilot is dropping bombs on his own mother. It’s hard to believe that, but even such crazy things have become a normal life for the aggressors.

Updated

Ukraine PM says Russian forces "behaving like terrorists" and are "killing children"

Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal says the world has “finally opened its eyes” to Vladimir Putin’s real intentions and says Russia has violated fundamental rights and freedoms since it invaded Ukraine.

Addressing the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, he says Russian forces are “behaving like terrorists”.

They bombard schools, kindergartens, hospitals. They kill children. They take hostages.

They kidnap representatives in the local authorities. They torture civilians.

Updated

Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal is addressing the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe.

Shmyhal is speaking in President Zelenskiy’s place, after it was reported the Ukrainian president would not give his scheduled address to the Council of Europe, citing “urgent, unforeseen circumstances”.

Europe “chose the road of pacifying the aggressor” for years, Shmyhal says, instead of “defending the values of democracy, the rule of law and human rights”

He goes on to say Europe showed a “poor understanding” of the real threat of Vladimir Putin’s regime despite “numerous violations of international law and other human values”.

Updated

Photos of Mariana Vishegirskaya were seen around the world as she escaped a maternity ward in Mariupol after it was bombed by the Russian military.

Vishegirskaya, who gave birth to a girl the next day, has described in this video what it was like in the ward when the attack began.

The mayors of Poland’s two largest cities have said they are struggling to cope with the huge number of refugees arriving from Ukraine, as UN figures show more than 1.7 million people have crossed into Poland in the weeks since Russia’s attack began.

Refugees from the war in Ukraine seek shelter in a sports centre in Warsaw, Poland.
Refugees from the war in Ukraine seek shelter in a sports centre in Warsaw, Poland. Photograph: Czarek Sokołowski/AP

Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, said that 300,000 people had arrived in the capital and pledged to continue to support refugees. But, he said on Twitter: “Our city remains the main destination for Ukrainian refugees. [The] situation is getting more and more difficult every day.”

More than 2.8 million people have fled Ukraine since 24 February, when the Russian invasion began. According to UN Human Rights Council data, more than half have travelled to Poland.

Refugees arriving to the Polish capital are mainly being accommodated in private residences, as well as two large sports arenas. Signs are now being posted in central train stations in Warsaw to direct people to other parts of Poland where there is more space to accommodate and provide for them. “Big cities in Poland are already overcrowded,” says one sign, “don’t be afraid to go to smaller towns: they are peaceful, have food, infrastructure and are well adapted.”

“I have this feeling that Warsaw is full and I hear it from many people. The reception points in Warsaw are also overcrowded,” said Marianna Ossolińska, a coordinator at the Club of Catholic Intelligentsia, which is working with refugees in Poland. Ossolińska is managing their hostel, which offers 70 beds and has been full since shortly after it opened on 2 March.

“Many refugees try to come to Warsaw, probably because they believe it will be easier to find transport to western Europe from a capital city, or to find a job or make connections,” she said.

Updated

Convoy of cars 'leaves' encircled Ukrainian city of Mariupol - Reuters

A convoy of more than 160 cars departed from Mariupol on Monday, local officials said, in what appeared to be the first successful attempt to arrange a “humanitarian corridor” to evacuate civilians from the encircled Ukrainian city.

Civilians have been trapped in the Black Sea port city for more than two weeks and are running out of supplies after being surrounded by Russian forces, the Ukrainian authorities say.

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 aftermath of artillery shelling by Russia is seen in a residential area, in Mariupol.
The aftermath of artillery shelling by Russia is seen in a residential area, in Mariupol. Photograph: Armed Forces Of Ukraine/Reuters

“It is known that as of 1pm (11am GMT) more than 160 private cars managed to leave,” it said in an online post. It said the convoy had reached the nearby city of Berdyansk and was heading on towards Zaporizhzhia.

“There is also confirmation that a ceasefire is currently holding along the humanitarian corridor that has been established,” it said. Reuters was unable immediately to verify the convoy’s progress.

Updated

Germany has said an immediate boycott of Russian gas and oil supplies could hurt its own population more than Vladimir Putin, bringing mass unemployment and poverty.

“If we flip a switch immediately, there will be supply shortages, even supply stops in Germany,” the economic and energy minister Robert Habeck told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday, as Europe’s largest economy intensely searches to diversify its energy supplies in the medium term.

The Green party politician predicted “mass unemployment, poverty, people who can’t heat their homes, people who run out of petrol” if his country stopped using Russian oil and gas.

Few other western economies are as dependent on Russian energy as Germany: 55% of the natural gas, 52% of the coal and 34% of mineral oil used in the country comes from Russia, for which it pays hundreds of thousands of euros daily, financially supporting the war machine devastating Ukraine.

Habeck said his government was working hard to ensure Germany would be in a position to give up Russian coal by the summer, and to phase out Russian oil by the end of the year, but that a short-term ban on Russian gas could leave his country exposed.

Updated

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, will virtually address the US Congress on Wednesday at 1pm GMT, US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

In a joint letter to US lawmakers, Schumer and Pelosi said:

The Congress remains unwavering in our commitment to supporting Ukraine as they face Putin’s cruel and diabolical aggression, and to passing legislation to cripple and isolate the Russian economy as well as deliver humanitarian, security and economic assistance to Ukraine.

Updated

More than 160 private cars have been able to leave the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol and were en route to the Russian-occupied town of Berdyansk, the city council said.

Over the past week, repeated efforts to evacuate civilians trapped in Mariupol have failed.

In an online post, the Mariupol city council said:

It is known that as of 1300 (1100 GMT) more than 160 private cars managed to leave.

More than 2,400 civilians have been killed in Mariupol since Russia invaded Ukraine last month, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said today.

Updated

Members of the Ukrainian community holding flags and banners protest against Russiaâs attacks on Ukraine in Milan, Italy on March 13, 2022.
Members of the Ukrainian community holding flags and banners protest against Russiaâs attacks on Ukraine in Milan, Italy on March 13, 2022. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
People take a knee during a moment of silence at a rally in support of Ukraine on Pennsylvania Ave in front of the White House in Washington, DC on March 13, 2022.
People take a knee during a moment of silence at a rally in support of Ukraine on Pennsylvania Ave in front of the White House in Washington, DC on March 13, 2022. Photograph: Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty Images

Squatters have occupied a mansion belonging to the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska in central London, Diane Taylor reports.

The £25 million mansion of a Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has been taken over by protesters in London’s Belgravia.
The £25 million mansion of a Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has been taken over by protesters in London’s Belgravia. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

The five squatters in the building in Belgrave Square – two from eastern Europe, though not from Ukraine – say they feel their countries are also under threat from Vladimir Putin. Their plan is to open up the mansion, which they say “has too many rooms to count” including a cinema and a wine cellar, to Ukrainians fleeing the war, along with other refugees needing shelter.

In a message to Russian oligarchs, the squatters said: “You occupy Ukraine, we occupy you.”

A significant police presence barred entry to the cream-coloured stone building with a black front door and pillars at the entrance. Officers were later seen using a drill to break through the front door and entering the building. The squatters shouted: “Criminal damage” from the balcony above.

This part of London has been nicknamed “oligarchs’ quarter” because so many wealthy Russians have bought properties here, a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace.

Deripaska is an aluminium magnate. He has called on Putin to make peace with Ukraine. He was among seven Russian oligarchs put under UK government sanctions last week.

Updated

Russian forces have damaged a high-voltage line connecting Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant to the power grid, Ukraine’s state energy company Ukrenergo said.

The head of Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskiy, said the plant was relying on electricity from diesel generators after external power supplies to the plant were damaged again. The retired nuclear plant lost power early last week but supply was restored on Sunday, AFP reports.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the energy operator said:

The line that supplies the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the town of Slavutych was damaged by the occupying forces.

Speaking on national television, Kudrytskiy said the town of Slavutych, close to the Chernobyl plant, was completely without power for the same reason.

Updated

Wen-ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University, said he believed the chance that China would supply weapons to Russia was “small”, Helen Davidson reports.

“Doing it would be both too late to help the distant war in Ukraine, and would look very bad for Beijing. It’s not worth it,” he said.

However Sung said the US’s public airing of Russia’s requests - which were still of real concern - also allowed it to pressure Beijing on its civilian trade with Russia, which could include non-military parts and components which could be used in weapons production.

By flagging the possibility of the Chinese providing military aid, Washington actually is laying down talking points to nudge China into limiting ‘civilian trading relationship’ with Russia and semi-joining (however partially) the international economic sanctions against Russia.

If it works, it will reduce China-Russia trade and further weaken Russia; if it doesn’t, it will help shore up the ‘China is Russia’s enabler’ image, and claim moral high ground for the US vis-a-vis China.

Professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute, said Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, would not want to put China’s economy at risk during a year when his top priority is securing a third term.

China under Xi will give whatever support it can to help Putin but it will not allow itself to suffer from secondary sanctions as it does so, despite the [agreement] of ‘rock solid’ support and a friendship ‘without limits.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has called for a global boycott of international companies that have kept their operations open in Russia, Reuters reports.

In a briefing today, Kuleba said sanctions pressure should be increased on Russia and called for international ports to bar passage to Russian ships and cargo.

Kuleba said:

International businesses must leave Russia, both for moral and practical reasons.

A former Russian foreign minister has joined a call for all sides in the Ukrainian war to return to diplomacy and reduce “the dramatically elevated risk” of a catastrophic nuclear war, Patrick Wintour reports.

The appeal co-authored by Professor Igor Ivanov, the president of the Russian International Affairs Council, may be a sign that some in the Russian foreign policy establishment believe the risks of Russia pursuing a purely military solution to its grievances in Ukraine is a strategic mistake.

Ivanov was the Russian foreign minister under Boris Yeltsin from 1998 to 2004 and resigned following Vladimir Putin’s appointment as President. Ivanov was succeeded by Sergei Lavrov, but has retained a status in Russian foreign policy circles.

The statement urging all sides to back a ceasefire, and end the unjustifiable loss of civilian lives, is signed by Ivanov and a group of foreign policy heavyweights such as Wolfgang Ischinger, the former chair of the Munich Security Conference, Sam Nunn, the co-chair, Nuclear Threat Initiative, and former US Senator, and Lord Browne, the former UK defence secretary.

Ivanov as a former Yeltsin era minister is hardly part of Putin’s inner circle, but he may reflect unease in the marginalised Russian ministry of foreign affairs.

The statement comes as negotiators from Russia and Ukraine met for a third round of bilateral talks. Both sides ahead of the talks sounded more optimistic than before, but the cause for their optimism was unclear.

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is pressing for a direct meeting with the Russian president Vladimir Putin. France, the UK and the US remain sceptical that Russia is yet willing to negotiate a settlement that the Ukrainian leadership would find acceptable.

The German chancellor Olaf Scholz flew to Turkey for talks with the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Turkey has been offering to act as a mediator and hosted talks between Lavrov and the Ukrainian foreign minister Dmitry Kulaba.

The joint statement avoids attributing responsibility for the war but instead focuses on the responsibility of nuclear weapon states to eliminate nuclear risks, adding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine elevates such risks dramatically.

They warn:

The firefight at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine was the latest reminder of how nuclear catastrophe can quickly rise to the surface in the ‘fog of war.’ The leaders of China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States together affirmed in January that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.’

The first and most essential step toward reducing the risks of a consequential accident, mistake, or miscalculation is a ceasefire to end the unacceptable and unjustifiable loss of human lives, including innocent civilians.

Dialogue, diplomacy and negotiations are the only acceptable route to resolving the conflict in a way that can stand the test of time. We must return to diplomacy and dialogue to ensure current disputes on core issues are negotiated and not fought. We welcome the first attempts of Russia and Ukraine to start such negotiations. We also welcome the efforts of world leaders aimed at finding a political settlement.

Updated

A man stands on the balcony of an apartment building after it was shelled in Kyiv on March 14, 2022.
A man stands on the balcony of an apartment building after it was shelled in Kyiv on March 14, 2022. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images
A firefighter walks along a rescue ladder placed into the window frame of a smouldering apartment building after it was shelled in Kyiv on March 14, 2022.
A firefighter walks along a rescue ladder placed into the window frame of a smouldering apartment building after it was shelled in Kyiv on March 14, 2022. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has reached out to Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this morning about the unfolding bombardment of his country, Helena Smith writes.

In telephone talks, Mitsotakis expressed Greece’s “undivided support” for Kyiv, emphasising that despite Russian fury Athens was committed to sending further assistance to Ukraine as well as taking in refugees from the war-torn state.

Mitsotakis’ office said in a statement:

The dramatic situation in areas where the Greek diaspora live and the need for the opening of humanitarian corridors for the safe exodus [of people] and access of humanitarian aid was also discussed.

The plight of the Greek general consul - the last remaining EU diplomat in the besieged southern city of Mariuopol - was also raised, it said.

The envoy has been holed up with local staff in the Mariupol offices of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) after the rest of the diplomatic mission fled earlier this month. The strategic port city is home to some 120,000 expatriate Greeks, a community with roots in the region for more than 2,000 years.

The Greek leader told Zelenskiy that the “wholehearted implementation of sanctions by partners and allies” would play a vital role in pressuring Moscow to stop the attacks.

Greece, which traditionally has enjoyed strong relations with fellow Orthodox Russia, has spectacularly fallen out with Moscow over Ukraine with the centre-right government going so far as to include weapons among the assistance it has sent to Ukraine in the 19 days since the invasion began.

Updated

Russia denies asking China for military help in Ukraine

Russia could take full control of major Ukrainian cities and has sufficient military clout to fulfil all of its aims in Ukraine without any need for help from China, the Kremlin said.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russian troops could take “major population centres under full control” in Ukraine.

When asked by Reuters about remarks by US officials who had said Russia had asked China for military equipment, Peskov denied the claims.

He replied:

Russia possesses its own independent potential to continue the operation. As we said, it is going according to plan and will be completed on time and in full.

Russian airstrike hits residential building in Kyiv

A Russian airstrike has hit a residential building in Kyiv as Moscow’s forces stepped up their brutal campaign to capture Ukraine’s capital and other major cities, even as a fourth round of peace talks between the two sides got under way, Jon Henley reports.

A day after Russia attacked a military base near the Polish border, an airstrike in Kyiv’s Obolon district killed one person and wounded several others, emergency services said on Monday, revising an earlier death toll down by one.

One person was found dead in the nine-storey apartment building, officials said, with three more people hospitalised as air raid sirens sounded in the capital and other cities hours before Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were set to resume talks.

Kyiv city authorities also said on Monday that the Antonov aircraft plant, also known as Hostomel, about 11km north-west of the centre, had been shelled. The site is the country’s most important international cargo airport, as well as a key military airbase. They said the city was stockpiling two weeks’ worth of food for the 2 million people who have not yet fled.

The fourth round of formal talks – held via videoconference – would focus on achieving a ceasefire, securing Russian troop withdrawals and establishing security guarantees for Ukraine, a Ukrainian negotiator, Mykhailo Podolyak, said on Monday, after both sides gave positive assessments for progress.

“The parties actively express their specified positions,” Podolyak tweeted.

Communication is being held yet it’s hard. The reason for the discord is two different political systems.

Podolyak had said earlier that Russia was “beginning to talk constructively” and he thought “we will achieve some results literally in a matter of days”. A Russian delegate, Leonid Slutsky, also said daily contact between the two teams had allowed significant progress and draft agreements could be possible soon.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said one aim of the “difficult negotiating work” was to set up a meeting between himself and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, with the ultimate goal of “Ukraine getting the necessary result for peace and for security”.

The country’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, called on the west on Monday to supply Ukraine with weapons and apply further sanctions on Russia to help prevent other countries being dragged into a wider conflict.

Kuleba tweeted:

To those abroad scared of being dragged into WWIII: Ukraine fights back successfully. We need you to help us fight. Provide us with all necessary weapons.

Apply more sanctions on Russia and isolate it fully. Help Ukraine force Putin into failure and you will avert a larger war.

Updated

A close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin has admitted Russia’s military operation in Ukraine has not gone as quickly as the Kremlin had wanted, Reuters reports.

National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov blamed the slower than expected progress on what he said were far-right Ukrainian forces hiding behind civilians, an accusation repeatedly made by Russian officials.

Speaking at a church service led by Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on Sunday, Zolotov said:

I would like to say that yes, not everything is going as fast as we would like.

But we are going towards our goal step by step and victory will be for us, and this icon will protect the Russian army and accelerate our victory.

Zolotov is a powerful security official who was once in charge of Putin’s personal security and who now heads the National Guard.

His comments signalled the strongest public acknowledgement from Moscow that Russia’s advances have not gone to plan. They also appeared to be at odds with an assessment on Friday, by Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu, who told Putin that “everything is going according to plan”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and the National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov pictured marking the Day of Russia’s National Guard in Moscow.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and the National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov. Photograph: Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images

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

Updated

China’s foreign ministry has reacted angrily to reports of US government claims that Russia had asked China’s government for military equipment, Helen Davidson writes.

The reports in multiple US outlets cited US officials saying Moscow had been seeking weapons from Beijing for some time.

At the regular press briefing in Beijing on Monday afternoon, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said the US was spreading “malicious disinformation”, with “sinister intentions”, according to translations by journalists in the room.

Zhao said:

China’s position on the Ukraine issue is consistent and clear, and China has been playing a constructive role in promoting peace talks.

It is imperative that all parties exercise restraint and cool down tensions, not add fuel to the fire.

The comments came just hours before a meeting in Rome began between US national security advisor Jake Sullivan and China’s most senior foreign policy official, Yang Jiechi, where Sullivan was expected to urge Yang not to supply arms to Moscow.

Zhao earlier said the meeting was to “implement the important consensus reached in the video meeting between the heads of state of China and the United States in November last year”.

Updated

Summary

The time in Kyiv is 1.15pm. Here is a round-up of the main headlines so far today:

  • Talks between Russia and Ukraine on Monday have started and communication between the two sides is hard but ongoing, Ukrainian presidential adviser and negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.
  • One person was killed and three injured when a shell hit a residential building in north-west Kyiv on Monday morning, Ukraine’s state emergency services said. The nine-storey residential apartment building reportedly caught fire from Russian shelling after 5am.
  • The Antonov aircraft plant in Kyiv has been shelled by Russian forces, the Kyiv city administration said in an update on its official Telegram account on Monday morning. At least two people were killed and seven injured, it said.
  • A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson has said assertions from US officials that Russia asked Beijing for military equipment for its campaign in Ukraine were “disinformation” from the US. The comments came during a regular Chinese foreign ministry briefing in Beijing, Reuters reported.
  • 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 on Monday.
  • A pregnant woman and her baby have died after Russia bombed the maternity hospital where she was meant to give birth, the Associated Press has learned. Images of the woman being rushed to an ambulance on a stretcher had circled the world, epitomising the horror of the attack.
  • Germany will reportedly purchase up to 35 F-35 fighter jets, a government source told Reuters.
  • The US will try to persuade China not to supply arms to Russia at a high-level meeting in Rome.
  • The UK defence ministry claims Russian naval forces are “effectively isolating Ukraine from international maritime trade”, its latest defence intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine reads.
  • Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region, is reportedly in Ukraine alongside Russian forces, according to footage shared by Chechen television channels and posted to Kadyrov’s Telegram account.
  • Vladimir Putin will be “held responsible” for war crimes in Ukraine at the international criminal court in The Hague, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, has pledged, saying the UK would help gather the necessary evidence.
  • The CEO of controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI said the Ukraine defence ministry has started to use its services, according to Reuters.
  • Ukrainian president Zelenskiy urged Nato to impose a no-fly zone after the attack on the military base that brought the fighting close to the Polish border. “If you don’t close our sky, it is only a matter of time before Russian rockets fall on your territory, on Nato territory,” he said.
  • Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday the full implementation of sanctions by European Union countries would help put pressure on Russia to stop attacks.
  • The German multinational pharmaceutical company Bayer has suspended advertising and investments in Russia, it announced today.
  • Russia’s defence ministry admitted responsibility for a rocket attack on the International Centre for Peacekeeping and Security, a military base, near the Polish border on Sunday.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for a short while. I’ll be back at 2pm but my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong will be along shortly to bring you all the latest on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Updated

Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday the full implementation of sanctions by European Union countries would help put pressure on Russia to stop attacks.

The two leaders discussed the impact of Russia’s invasion by phone, the Greek premier’s office said.

“The [Greek] prime minister stressed ... that the full implementation of sanctions by all member states and allies will help increase pressure on Russia to stop the attacks,” Mitsotakis’ office said.

Mitsotakis assured Zelenskiy the Greek government fully supports Ukraine, Reuters reported. Greece was sending aid and was ready to host refugees.

The two leaders also agreed on the need for a humanitarian corridor in stricken regions such as Mariupol, where hundreds of ethnic Greeks live. Athens is also making efforts to evacuate its consul general and other people from Mariupol.

Mitsotakis discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with Turkish president Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at Vahdettin Mansion, in Istanbul on March 13, 2022.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (L) meets Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (R) in Istanbul on March 13, 2022. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Updated

Allies of the Ukrainian president Voldymyr Zelenskiy say Vladimir Putin will only accept a compromise on Ukraine’s future neutrality if he is facing a credible threat to his economic power base by a rapid and permanent exclusion of Russia’s oil and gas exports from its lucrative European markets.

The Russian government receives 40% of its budget revenues from energy exports.

But Ukraine is meeting stubborn resistance from Germany, which insists its economy would be plunged into recession if it suddenly lost access to Russian gas and oil.

In an interview reflecting the moral pressure Germany is under to do more, Germany’s Green economics minister, Robert Habeck, admitted Europe in the past had fed Ukraine false promises, but said Germany could not afford “the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs” that a full energy embargo would require. He said Germany at best could be freed of Russian coal by the autumn, of its oil by the end of the year, but could set no date for ending German reliance on gas.

The impasse is leaving senior allies of Zelenskiy feeling frustrated, and appealing to the UK and the US to use the G7 to try to persuade the Germany chancellor Olaf Scholz to sign up to a western timetable to end dependence on Russian energy.

Talks between Russia and Ukraine resume

Talks between Russia and Ukraine on Monday have started and communication between the two sides is hard but ongoing, Ukrainian presidential adviser and negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.

Tweeting a photo of the talks, which are being conducted via video conference, Podolyak said: “The parties actively express their specified positions.

“Communication is being held yet it’s hard. The reason for the discord is too different political systems.”

Updated

A pregnant woman and her baby have died after Russia bombed the maternity hospital where she was meant to give birth, the Associated Press has learned.

Images of the woman being rushed to an ambulance on a stretcher had circled the world, epitomising the horror of the attack.

In video and photos after the bombing of the hospital in Mariupol last Wednesday, the woman was seen stroking her bloodied lower abdomen as rescuers rushed her through the rubble.

The woman was taken to another hospital, closer to the frontline, where doctors laboured to keep her alive. Realising she was losing her baby, medics said, she cried out to them: “Kill me now.”

Timur Marin, a surgeon, said he found the woman’s pelvis crushed and hip detached. Medics delivered the baby via caesarean section but it showed no signs of life, Marin said. Then they focused on the mother.

“More than 30 minutes of resuscitation of the mother didn’t produce results,” Marin said. “Both died.”

Vladimir Putin will be “held responsible” for war crimes in Ukraine at the international criminal court in The Hague, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, has pledged, saying the UK would help gather the necessary evidence.

The justice secretary, Dominic Raab, was travelling to The Hague on Monday to help make sure that “when that prosecution comes, the court will have what it needs”, Javid told BBC One’s Breakfast programme.

Javid was asked for his response to the news that a pregnant woman shown in a much-used photograph being stretchered out of a bombed maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol had reportedly since died, as had her baby.

“It fills me with rage to see something like that. These are appalling atrocities committed on innocent civilians in Ukraine by the Russians,” Javid said, saying the World Health Organization had documented 31 attacks so far on health facilities.

“These are war crimes and Putin will be held responsible,” he added. Asked how, Javid said: “He will be ultimately held responsible for sure by the international court. Today, the justice secretary, my colleague, is going to The Hague and he’ll be meeting there with the chief prosecutor and others, offering UK support to gather evidence.”

Updated

The German multinational pharmaceutical company Bayer has suspended advertising and investments in Russia, it announced today.

In a statement, the Bayer group said:

As a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Bayer stopped all spending in Russia and Belarus that is not related to supplying essential products in health and agriculture. This includes:

Suspending all advertising and other promotional activities.

Halting capital investment projects indefinitely.

Not pursuing any new business opportunities.

We have also heard voices calling for a complete stop of delivery of all our products to Russia and Belarus. We understand these concerns as the war raises moral and ethical issues for every company.

Our position is that this senseless war has already taken many lives. As a Life Science company, we have an ethical obligation – in every country we operate in. Withholding essential health and agriculture products from the civilian populations – like cancer or cardiovascular treatments, health products for pregnant women and children as well as seeds to grow food – would only multiply the war’s ongoing toll on human life.

The full statement can be found here.

The logo of German chemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer at the group’s plant in Wuppertal, western Germany.
The logo of German chemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer at the group’s plant in Wuppertal, western Germany. Photograph: Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

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 on Monday.

“The highest number of victims are in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kherson, Mykolayiv and Zhytomyr regions,” it said in a statement.

Reuters said it could not immediately verify the information. Russia denies targeting civilians in what it calls a “special operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine.

A view shows hotel ‘Ukraine’ destroyed during an air strike in central Chernihiv.
A hotel destroyed during an air strike in central Chernihiv. Photograph: Reuters

Updated

The Tate has severed relations with Viktor Vekselberg and Petr Aven after the Russian billionaires were sanctioned by the US and EU after the invasion of Ukraine.

Vekselberg, the founder of a Russian energy conglomerate and an associate of Vladimir Putin, was an honorary member of the prestigious Tate Foundation, a fundraising charity for acquisitions, exhibitions, education and capital projects.

“Mr Vekselberg donated to Tate seven years ago and no longer holds his honorary membership title,” the London gallery group said. Vekselberg has already been the target of US sanctions imposed in 2018.

On Friday, he was again among a list of Russian billionaires facing US sanctions, with the government saying he has “maintained close ties” with Putin. His jet and yacht have been identified as “blocked property”.

As well as the Tate, he has donated in the US to the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall – prior to sanctions being imposed.

Vekselberg’s fortune is estimated to be as much as $9.3bn (£6.9bn), which he began amassing after Russia’s oil and aluminium industries were privatised.

Updated

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğanwill discuss the war in Ukraine with German chancellor Olaf Scholz at talks in Ankara on Monday, his office said.

It comes as both countries press on with efforts to secure a ceasefire 19 days into Russia’s invasion, Reuters reported.

Nato member Turkey shares a maritime border with Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea and has good ties with both. It has said the invasion is unacceptable and voiced support for Ukraine, but has also opposed sanctions on Moscow, while offering to mediate.

Ukraine said on Sunday it was working with Turkey and Israel as mediators to set a place and framework for talks with Russia, after Turkey hosted the foreign ministers of the warring nations for the first high-level talks last week.

Monday’s visit will mark Scholz’s first trip to Turkey since taking office in December 2021 and comes amid efforts by Germany to engage with Russian president Vladimir Putin to end Moscow’s invasion. Germany and France have taken leading roles within the European Union to end the war.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attends the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on 11 March in Antalya, Turkey.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attends the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on 11 March in Antalya, Turkey. Photograph: Dia Images/Getty Images

“Aside from bilateral ties, an exchange of views is expected to be held on other regional and international issues, primarily Ukraine and Turkey-EU relations,” the Turkish presidency said.

Turkey says it can facilitate peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, but says that a ceasefire and humanitarian corridors are needed first.

Updated

A residential block in the north-west of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, has been hit with artillery.

Firefighters were working to get a fire under control and one person was killed and three injured, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Updated

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba called on the west on Monday to supply Ukraine with weapons and apply more sanctions on Russia to help prevent other countries being dragged into a wider conflict.

Ukraine has repeatedly urged its allies to do more to help it resist the Russian invasion that began on 24 February.

Some western governments fear that doing so could pull other countries, including Nato member states, into the war, Reuters reported.

“To those abroad scared of being dragged into WWIII. Ukraine fights back successfully. We need you to help us fight. Provide us with all necessary weapons,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

“Apply more sanctions on Russia and isolate it fully. Help Ukraine force Putin into failure and you will avert a larger war.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba attends a news conference in Antalya.
Ukrainian foreign minister Kuleba attends a news conference in Antalya. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters

Updated

The British health secretary Sajid Javid said the Ukraine family scheme for refugees was “being made easier and more straightforward” from Tuesday.

He told Times Radio the latest information from Saturday revealed “just over 3,000” visas had been granted through the programme.

But he said:

As well as that particular scheme, the extended family scheme being made easier and more straightforward by our online-only process from tomorrow, there’s the new homes for Ukrainian families scheme, which will also go live later this week.

Javid said there would be a basic level of security checks in both schemes, and he added:

I think that is right because you want to get the right balance between sort of speed and the people that we’re trying to help are in a desperate situation, and you want to bring that help as quickly as possible, but also do some basic checks and I think what we have done here is the right balance.

The health secretary said those offering a place for refugees to stay would be subject to Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Sajid Javid arrives in Downing Street in central London to attend Cabinet meeting on March 08, 2022.
Secretary of state for health and social care Sajid Javid arrives in Downing Street in central London to attend a cabinet meeting on 8 March. Photograph: WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

Australia and the Netherlands have launched legal proceedings against Russia through the International Civil Aviation Organization for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

The legal action could compel Russia to take part in stalled negotiations with the two countries, and could also result in it being penalised by the United Nations-linked organisation that is responsible for the administration of international aviation law.

Australia and the Netherlands have been seeking compensation and an apology from the Russian federation for the MH17 disaster, in which 298 people, including 38 Australians, died when it was shot down over Ukraine in 2014.

Ria van der Steen, who lost her father and stepmother in the MH17 crash, is preparing to give testimony in court in the trial of four men charged with murder over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

However, Russia, which has denied involvement despite the findings of an international investigation, unilaterally withdrew from negotiations with the two countries in October 2020.

Updated

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson has said assertions from US officials that Russia asked Beijing for military equipment for its campaign in Ukraine were “disinformation” from the US.

The comments came during a regular Chinese foreign ministry briefing in Beijing, Reuters reported.

Tom Ambrose here now until 11am London time, bringing you all the latest news from Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Updated

Footage published by the Belarusian media outlet NEXTA TV purportedly shows the Antonov aviation industry plant just outside Kyiv on fire.

In the video, thick plumes of smoke can be seen billowing in the distance.

Note: We incorrectly said NEXTA TV is a Ukrainian media outlet in an earlier version of this post. This has now been rectified.

Updated

Summary

It is 9.30am in Ukraine on day 19 of Russia’s war. Here is where the situation stands:

  • Two people were killed and three injured when a shell hit a residential building in north-west Kyiv on Monday morning, Ukraine’s state emergency services said. The nine-storey residential apartment building reportedly caught fire from Russian shelling after 5am.
  • The Antonov aircraft plant in Kyiv has been shelled by Russian forces, the Kyiv city administration said in an update on its official Telegram account on Monday morning.
  • Talks will begin shortly between Ukraine and Russia today with officials on both sides offering cautious optimism despite little evidence that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s position has changed. Negotiations are set to begin at 10.30am local time.
  • A pregnant woman seen in widely circulated images after Russian bombing of Ukrainian hospital has died with her baby, the Associated Press is reporting. The woman was escaping the bombing of the maternity hospital where she was due to give birth in the besieged city of Mariupol.
  • Germany will reportedly purchase up to 35 F-35 fighter jets, a government source told Reuters.
  • US officials believe Russia has sought military support from China amid claims that the Russian military is running short on certain kinds of armaments, the Financial Times first reported. The developments have led to fears Beijing may undermine the West’s efforts to help Ukraine.
  • The US will try to persuade China not to supply arms to Russia at a high-level meeting in Rome.
  • The Ukrainian military is claiming cases of “mass refusals by Russian servicemen” to fight in the war on Ukraine, according the latest operational report.
  • The UK defence ministry claims Russian naval forces are “effectively isolating Ukraine from international maritime trade”, its latest defence intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine reads.
  • Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region, is reportedly in Ukraine alongside Russian forces, according to footage shared by Chechen television channels and posted to Kadyrov’s Telegram account.
  • British prime minister Boris Johnson announced that the UK government will donate more than 500 mobile generators to Ukraine to help provide power for key buildings such as hospitals, shelters and water treatment plants.
  • Russia’s state media and communication regulator, Rozcomnadzor, says Instagram will be banned, claiming the social networking site “calls for violence against Russians” as the reason behind the embargo.
  • The CEO of controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI said the Ukraine defence ministry has started to use its services, according to Reuters.
  • Ukrainian president Zelenskiy urged Nato to impose a no-fly zone after the attack on the military base that brought the fighting close to the Polish border. “If you don’t close our sky, it is only a matter of time before Russian rockets fall on your territory, on Nato territory,” he said.
  • Russia’s defence ministry admitted responsibility for a rocket attack on the International Centre for Peacekeeping and Security, a military base, near the Polish border on Sunday.
  • Desperately needed medical gear and equipment, including trauma kits, is reaching Ukraine to prop up a healthcare system grappling with a shortage of supplies amid Russia’s invasion, the World Health Organization said.
A view of a residential building, which was damaged as a result of the explosion of a Russian combat missile, in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
A residential building damaged as a result of the explosion of a Russian combat missile in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Updated

Germany will reportedly purchase up to 35 F-35 fighter jets, a government source said on Monday, after sources told Reuters earlier that the government in Berlin had decided in principle to buy the US fighter jets.

Desperately needed medical gear and equipment, including trauma kits, is reaching Ukraine to prop up a healthcare system grappling with a shortage of supplies amid Russia’s invasion, the World Health Organization has said.

Supply chains have been severely disrupted, with many distributors knocked out, some stockpiles out of reach because of military operations, supplies of medicine running low, as hospitals struggle to care for the sick and wounded, it said.

“The current estimated number of people impacted in Ukraine is 18 million, of which 6.7 million are internally displaced,” the agency said in a statement. “Nearly 3 million people have fled the country.”

WHO was working with partners to alleviate shortages of critical equipment and medication such as oxygen and insulin, surgical supplies, anaesthetics, and transfusion kits, it added.

Items being shipped included oxygen generators, electrical generators, defibrillators, monitors, anaesthesia drugs, rehydration salts, gauze and bandages.

WHO said supplies were being distributed in coordination with Ukraine’s health ministry, backed by a support hub in neighbouring Poland.

The coming days and weeks will see a constant flow of medical supplies, as part of an effort to ensure people’s access to essential drugs and medical care.”

Updated

The Antonov aircraft plant in Kyiv has been shelled by Russian forces, the Kyiv city administration said in an update on its official Telegram account on Monday morning.

At least two people were killed and seven were injured in the attack, it said.

A series of videos uploaded on social media show a thick plume of smoke rising from above the airport. The Guardian has been unable to verify the authenticity of the footage.

Updated

Two killed after shell hit a residential building in Kyiv this morning

Two people were killed and three injured when a shell hit a residential building in north-west Kyiv on Monday morning, Ukraine’s state emergency services has said.

“As of 07:40, the bodies of two people were found in a nine-storey residential building, three people were hospitalised, nine people were treated on the spot,” the agency said in a statement just after 8am.

A further 15 people were reportedly rescued from the blaze and 63 evacuated with the fire extinguished just before 8am.

The nine-storey residential apartment building reportedly caught fire from Russian shelling after 5am.

Ukraine’s state emergency service published an update at 7.30am local time, saying they received a report of a fire that broke out shortly after 5am in the Obolonskyi district of the capital.

The nine-storey residential apartment building reportedly caught fire from Russian shelling after 5am.
The nine-storey residential apartment building reportedly caught fire from Russian shelling after 5am. Photograph: Ukraine emergency services Telegram account
A screen grab taken from the Ukraine’s emergency services official Telegram account of afire at an apartment building in Kviv this morning.
A screen grab taken from the Ukraine’s emergency services official Telegram account of afire at an apartment building in Kviv this morning. Photograph: Ukraine emergency services Telegram account
Two people were killed and three injured when a shell hit a residential building in north-west Kyiv on Monday morning.
Two people were killed and three injured when a shell hit a residential building in north-west Kyiv on Monday morning. Photograph: Ukraine emergency services Telegram account

Updated

Pregnant woman seen in images fleeing Ukrainian hospital bombing has died with her baby: reports

A pregnant woman seen in widely circulated images after Russian bombing of Ukrainian hospital has died with her baby, the Associated Press is reporting.

The woman was escaping the bombing of the maternity hospital where she was meant to give birth in the besieged city of Mariupol.

Images of the woman being rushed to an ambulance on a stretcher had circled the world as rescuers rushed her through the rubble.

Debris is seen on site of the destroyed Mariupol children’s hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine.
Debris is seen on site of the destroyed Mariupol children’s hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photograph: Ukraine Military/Reuters

The woman was rushed to another hospital where doctors laboured to keep her alive. Medics delivered the baby via cesarean section, but it showed “no signs of life”, surgeon Timur Marin said.

“More than 30 minutes of resuscitation of the mother didn’t produce results,” Marin said on Saturday. “Both died.”

In the chaos after Wednesday’s airstrike, medics did not have time to get the woman’s name before her husband and father came to take away her body, AP reports.

Updated

Diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine will continue with Ukrainian and Russian negotiators to resume talks, reportedly set to begin at 10.30am local time.

An adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry, Anton Herashchenko, confirmed the start time in an update posted to his official Telegram account this morning.

“Negotiations with Russia will take place this morning via video link. They will start at 10.30,” he said.

Updated

Leader of Russia’s Chechnya region claims to be outside Kyiv

Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region, is reportedly in Ukraine alongside Russian forces, according to footage shared by Chechen television channels and posted to Kadyrov’s Telegram account.

Kadyrov posted a video on Telegram of himself on Monday in military uniform studying plans around a table with soldiers in a room.

In a message, he said that the video had been taken at Hostomel, an airfield near Kyiv, Agence France-Presse reports.

“The other day we were about 20km from you Kyiv Nazis and now we are even closer,” Kadyrov reportedly wrote as he called on Ukrainian forces to surrender “or you will be finished”.

Chechen Republic leader Ramzan Kadyrov speaks during a review of the Chechen Republic’s troops and military hardware in February.
Chechen Republic leader Ramzan Kadyrov speaks during a review of the Chechen Republic’s troops and military hardware in February. Photograph: Yelena Afonina/TASS

“We will show you that Russian practice teaches warfare better than foreign theory and the recommendations of military advisers,” he added.

The Chechen television channel Grozny also posted a video on its Telegram channel earlier on Sunday that showed Kadyrov in a darkened room discussing with Chechen troops a military operation they said took place 7km (4.3 miles) from the Ukrainian capital.

The videos could not be independently verified.

Kadyrov and his forces have been accused by international NGOs of serious human rights violations in the tightly controlled Caucasus republic. He is a former rebel turned Kremlin ally who has previously described himself as Putin’s “foot soldier” with a paramilitary force at his command.

The exodus of refugees fleeing Ukraine has culminated in Europe’s biggest refugee crisis this century.

Almost 2.7 million people have fled the war in Ukraine with more than 100,000 leaving in the past 24 hours, according to the UN.

Most have fled to Poland. Krakow, the second largest city in Poland, is now struggling with the new arrivals as temporary accommodations and shelters remain full.

A woman carries her child at the Vysne Nemecke border crossing on 13 March in Vysne Nemecke, Slovakia.
A woman carries her child at the Vysne Nemecke border crossing on 13 March in Vysne Nemecke, Slovakia. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Children who fled the war in Ukraine look through a window as they wait for the departure of a humanitarian train to relocate refugees to Berlin on 13 March in Krakow, Poland.
Children who fled the war in Ukraine look through a window as they wait for the departure of a humanitarian train to relocate refugees to Berlin on 13 March in Krakow, Poland. Photograph: Omar Marques/Getty Images
Ukrainian refugees who fled the war take shelter in the main hall of an athletics complex in Moldova’s capital Chisinau.
Ukrainian refugees who fled the war take shelter in the main hall of an athletics complex in Moldova’s capital Chisinau. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
A man says goodbye to a woman who fled the war in Ukraine as they wait for the departure of a humanitarian train to relocate refugees to Berlin.
A man says goodbye to a woman who fled the war in Ukraine as they wait for the departure of a humanitarian train to relocate refugees to Berlin. Photograph: Omar Marques/Getty Images
A woman minds her dogs after arriving at the main railway station in Krakow, Poland.
A woman minds her dogs after arriving at the main railway station in Krakow, Poland. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

A nine-storey residential apartment building in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv is reportedly on fire from Russian shelling this morning.

The Kyiv Independent newspaper reports a nine-storey apartment block in the city is currently on fire with firefighters working to put out the blaze.

Ukraine’s state emergency service published an update at 7.30am local time, saying they received a report of a fire that broke out shortly after 5am in Obolonskyi district of the capital.

Rescuers immediately began evacuating residents and extinguishing the fire. Information regarding any victims remains uncertain, the agency said.

Updated

Russia’s coal and fertiliser tycoon Andrei Melnichenko has urged for a ceasefire in Ukraine, calling the war a tragedy that must be stopped and describing a looming global food crisis amid rising fertilizer prices.

“The events in Ukraine are truly tragic. We urgently need peace,” Melnichenko, 50, who is Russian but was born in Belarus and has a Ukrainian mother, told Reuters in a statement emailed by his spokesman on Monday.

“As a Russian by nationality, a Belarusian by birth, and a Ukrainian by blood, I feel great pain and disbelief witnessing brotherly peoples fighting and dying.”

We have seen how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - coming after the Covid supply disruptions - has sent food prices soaring to record highs, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The supply gap from the war could push global food and feed prices as much as 22% above their already elevated prices, the FAO said late last week.

Wheat prices have led the rises, not least because Ukraine itself accounts for about one-eighth of global trade in the commodity, or about 25 million tonnes in a normal year. Russia exports too, are likely to face more sanctions.

The more immediate risk - which is not as priced into commodity markets - is in the spring crops that are not yet planted in Ukraine, namely corn and sunflowers, according to Stefan Vogel, head of the Australian unit of RaboResearch.

The European Union, for instance, sources 40-60% of its feed grain for animals from Ukraine. The US would be a potential supplier but the EU restricts genetically modified crops, making Brazil the only major alternative source, Vogel said.

Brazil’s grain crops were poor last year, so there is an expectation that supplies won’t be as low.

“Brazil needs to be exceptionally good - and it doesn’t look like it for now, but we’re in early stages - to really bring price pressure on the corn market,” Vogel said.

While richer nations can shuffle supplies and substitute crops, poorer ones don’t have that luxury.

Assuming the disruptions are prolonged, the global number of undernourished people could increase by 8 to 13 million people in 2022/23, with the most pronounced increases taking place in Asia-Pacific, followed by sub-Saharan Africa, and the Near East and North Africa”, the FAO said.

Vogel expects the impact on food prices prices to be sustained, particularly because energy prices are likely to stay high, pushing up the cost of inputs including fertilisers.

“I think the grain market has to work through this [shock] not only in the next two months, but probably the next two years,” he said.

Belarusian armed forces are pushing asylum seekers from the Middle East who became trapped in the country after they were promised passage to the EU to cross the border into war-torn Ukraine, according to the testimony of people in Belarusian camps.

Dozens of asylum seekers stuck for months in a makeshift dormitory in Bruzgi, a village in Belarus less than a mile from the Polish border, were ordered by a group of Belarusian soldiers on 5 March to leave the building at gunpoint and given two options: crossing the border into Poland, where guards have beaten them back, or entering Ukraine, one of them said.

“A group of seven border guard officers that we had never seen before entered the building,” said a man who arrived in Belarus last autumn, and whose name and nationality cannot be disclosed for security reasons.

“They wore military clothes and, for the first time, they entered the camp holding weapons, beating us and telling us that we had two choices – either crossing into Poland or going to Ukraine.”

An earlier report released by the UK defence ministry claimed Russian naval forces are “effectively isolating Ukraine from international maritime trade”.

If you missed it earlier, the report read:

Russian naval forces have established a distant blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, effectively isolating Ukraine from international maritime trade.

Russian naval forces are also continuing to conduct missile strikes against targets throughout Ukraine.

Russia has already conducted one amphibious landing in the Sea of Azov and could look to conduct further such operations in the coming weeks.”

US to convince China not to supply arms to Russia

The Guardian’s world affairs editor, Julian Borger, talks through the state of play between the US, China and Russia.

The United States will try to persuade China not to supply arms to Russia at a high-level meeting in Rome which the White House sees as critically important not just for the war in Ukraine but also for the future of the global balance of power.

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, will meet his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, in the Italian capital amid reports that Russia has asked China for weapons to bolster its faltering invasion of Ukraine.

Sullivan will point out that the US briefed Beijing on Vladimir Putin’s intentions months ahead of the invasion, but that the Chinese leadership ignored those warnings, mistakenly believing that Putin was bluffing to gain leverage, according to sources familiar with plans for the Rome meeting. Sullivan will also argue that if China supplies weapons to Moscow it will be a further, historic mistake, and a turning point in global politics.

The White House is anxious to prevent the Ukraine war further cementing a division of the world into two opposing blocs. In an interview with CNN, Sullivan said:

We also are watching closely to see the extent to which China actually does provide any form of support – material support or economic support – to Russia.

It is a concern of ours. And we have communicated to Beijing that we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses from the economic sanctions.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China last month.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China last month. Photograph: SPUTNIK/Reuters

Sullivan said the US had made clear to Beijing that there would “absolutely be consequences” for “large-scale” efforts to help Russia sidestep sanctions.

Russia has also asked China for economic help as it faces severe western sanctions, but Sullivan told CNN the US was “communicating directly, privately to Beijing that there will absolutely be consequences” if China helps Russia evade sanctions.

The Financial Times, New York Times and Washington Post reported on Sunday about the Russian request for weapons, amid claims from US officials that the Russian military was running short on certain kinds of armaments.

The spokesperson for the US embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, told CNN he had “never heard” of the Russian arms requests.

“The current situation in Ukraine is indeed disconcerting,” he said in a statement. “The high priority now is to prevent the tense situation from escalating or even getting out of control.”

Some images that have come out of Ukraine in the last 24 hours show buildings, homes and even kindergartens destroyed by shelling.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are also using city subways as bomb shelters in order to evade Russian attacks.

A view of a kindergarten, which was damaged as a result of the explosion of a Russian combat missile, in Kharkiv, Ukraine on March 13, 2022.
A view of a kindergarten, which was damaged as a result of the explosion of a Russian combat missile, in Kharkiv, Ukraine on March 13, 2022. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
A Ukrainian soldier at the destroyed government building in Kharkov, Ukraine, on 13 March as Russian attacks continue.
A Ukrainian soldier at the destroyed government building in Kharkov, Ukraine, on 13 March as Russian attacks continue. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Elderly residents cross a destroyed bridge while fleeing Irpin, outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday 13 March.
Elderly residents cross a destroyed bridge while fleeing Irpin, outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday 13 March. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Sunday, March 13, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shakes hands with a wounded soldier during his visit to a hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine.
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Sunday, March 13, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shakes hands with a wounded soldier during his visit to a hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photograph: AP
A couple from the Ukrainian military embrace as they celebrate being married by Territorial Defence unit chaplain and combat paramedic, Yevhen at a hospital on March 13, 2022 in Brovary, Ukraine.
A couple from the Ukrainian military embrace as they celebrate being married by Territorial Defence unit chaplain and combat paramedic, Yevhen at a hospital on March 13, 2022 in Brovary, Ukraine. Photograph: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Updated

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy repeated his calls for Nato to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

“If you do not close our skies”, he said, “it is only a matter of time before Russian missiles fall on your territory, on the territory of Nato and on the homes of citizens of Nato countries”.

Watch the video of Zelenskiy’s Sunday evening remarks below.

Talks are set to continue between Ukraine and Russia today with officials on both sides offering cautious optimism despite little evidence that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s position has changed.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak confirmed talks will take place with Russia on Monday via video link.

“Again. Negotiations go non-stop in the format of video conferences. Working groups are constantly functioning. A large number of issues require constant attention. On Monday, March 14, a negotiating session will be held to sum up the preliminary results…” Podoliak said in a Twitter post on Sunday.

“Russia is starting to talk constructively,” Podolyak later added over Telegram, noting that Russia “is much more sensitive to Ukraine’s position”.

In a video message, the senior advisor said Ukraine’s proposals are “very tough” and concern “above all the withdrawal of troops, the cessation of hostilities”.

“I think we will reach some concrete results, literally, in a few days,” he added.

Summary

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the crisis unfolding in Ukraine. I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments.

It is just after 6am in Ukraine, the sun is beginning to rise and its citizens are bracing for what looks like a fourth week of war. Here is where the situation currently stands:

  • US officials believe Russia has sought military support from China amid claims that the Russian military is running short on certain kinds of armaments, the Financial Times first reported. The developments have led to fears Beijing may undermine the West’s efforts to help Ukraine.
  • US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, warned Beijing that it would “absolutely” face consequences if it helped Moscow evade sweeping sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
  • China responded to reports with a spokesperson for the US embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, telling CNN he had “never heard” of the Russian arms requests, noting that China’s priority was to ensure the situation does not escalate or get out of control.
  • The United States will try to persuade China not to supply arms to Russia at a high-level meeting in Rome.
  • The Ukrainian military is claiming cases of “mass refusals by Russian servicemen” to partake in the war on Ukraine, according the latest operational report.
  • The UK defence ministry claims Russian naval forces are “effectively isolating Ukraine from international maritime trade”, its latest defence intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine reads.
  • Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region, is reportedly in Ukraine alongside Russian forces, according to footage shared by Chechen television channels and posted to Kadyrov’s Telegram account.
  • Negotiations are set to continue between Ukraine and Russia on Monday with officials on both sides offering cautious optimism despite little evidence that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s position has changed.
  • US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron underscored in a call on Sunday their commitment to holding Russia accountable for the invasion of Ukraine, the White House said in a statement.
  • British prime minister Boris Johnson announced that the UK government will donate more than 500 mobile generators to Ukraine to help provide power for key buildings such as hospitals, shelters and water treatment plants.
  • Russia’s state media and communication regulator, Rozcomnadzor, says Instagram will be banned, claiming the social networking site “calls for violence against Russians” as the reason behind the embargo.
  • The CEO of controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI said the Ukraine defence ministry has started to use its services, according to Reuters.
  • Ukrainian president Zelenskiy urged Nato to impose a no fly zone after the attack on the military base that brought the fighting close to the Polish border. “If you don’t close our sky, it is only a matter of time before Russian rockets fall on your territory, on Nato territory,” he said.
  • Russia’s defence ministry admitted responsibility for a rocket attack on the International Centre for Peacekeeping and Security, a military base, near the Polish border on Sunday.

For any tips and feedback please contact me through Twitter or at samantha.lock@theguardian.com

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