Russian forces have captured 42 villages in the eastern Donetsk region, but an aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's chief of staff says Ukraine might take them back.
Look back on Friday's events as they happened in our blog.
Key events
Live updates
By Simon Smale
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By Simon Smale
Scale of damage becoming clear in villages around Kyiv
Drone footage shows the damaged shells of buildings in Borodianka, to the west of Ukraine's capital.
By Simon Smale
By Simon Smale
Ukrainians continue to assess damage in villages around Kyiv
By Simon Smale
Australia hits Putin's daughters with sanctions
The Australian Government has slapped travel bans and sanctions on more than 140 Russian politicians, as well as the daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The latest round of sanctions follow similar measures from the United States and the United Kingdom.
The Russian President’s daughters are largely shielded from the public eye – and it’s never been publicly confirmed that Putin is actually their father.
But Maria Vladimirovna Vorontsova, 36, and Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova, 35, are now on Australia’s official sanctions list.
The daughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Ekaterina Sergeevna Vinokurova, 39, has also been targeted.
Western nations have levelled sanctions against many people connected to the President and his inner sanctum, in a bid to freeze their assets around the world.
Reporting by Matt Doran.
By Simon Smale
Evacuees from Mariupol reach Zaporizhzhia
At least 80 people from Mariupol were able to flee the besieged city and arrive in Zaporizhzhia on Thursday.
After travelling more than 24 hours, those who managed to leave the city were smiling and waving from inside buses before greeting relatives, volunteers and journalists.
According to the Red Cross, 1,500 people were expected to flee but only a few dozens were able to leave.
Some were not allowed to get onto buses and others were removed by the Russians for no specified reason.
Sixty-one-year old Yuriy Lulac and his wife, 57-year-old Polina, who both have eyesight disabilities, were among those who fled from what Yuriy described as "hell".
"Russians are killing people for nothing. If the world doesn't take measures, Zaporizhzhia will be the same. Something needs to be done. As soon as possible," Mr Yuriy said.
Mr Yuriy and Ms Polina and at least a dozen more people spent almost two months living in a basement.
They couldn't shower; they were drinking water from the pipe or the rain, and they received aid only occasionally.
Most of those arriving to Zaporizhzhia, a way station for people fleeing Mariupol, experienced something similar in their home city, which is now transformed.
"There was a hole left instead of a nine-floor building," Dmitriy Antipenko, when speaking of his home, said.
Thinking about what he once called his house, he broke down in tears.
Seated in his wheelchair as he waits to move on to another place, Mr Antipenko said that when the evacuations began, his family did not pay it much attention as they never imagined things could become as bad as they have.
Mr Antipenko, who fled with his wife and is expecting to meet with his son soon, said that seven bodies were buried in the yard of the building where they lived.
For those who fled, there is still hope.
Tania and her partner Evgeniy walked for five days with their four kids - aged from 6 to 12 - until they got a ride in a vehicle that took them to Zaporizhzhia on Thursday.
They said that on several occasions they were asked by the Russians to move to Russia instead of Ukraine, but they just ignored the question and kept walking.
The family, who celebrated one of their children's birthdays in a shelter, said that there was no food other than what they bought before the war, or that they could take after shops were bombed and once others had already looted the stores.
Nearly two lethal months of bombardment has largely reduced Mariupol to a smoking ruin.
"It is very difficult when you see that your city, which has been built before your eyes and restored becoming more and more beautiful, is dying," Tania said, while holding the hand of her youngest child, 6-year-old Ulya.
Reporting by AP
By Simon Smale
Russia and Ukraine square off at UN on subject of food security
Russia and Ukraine squared off at the UN on Thursday over whether Russia’s war is to blame for rising food prices and hunger around the world.
Between them, the two countries account for nearly a third of global wheat and barley exports and millions of people in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia depend on them for affordable bread and noodles. Ukraine also is a major corn supplier and the biggest exporter of sunflower oil.
“As long as Russia persists in its efforts to invade Ukraine, the threat of hunger will be looming over many countries throughout the globe,” Ukrainian counsellor Natalia Mudrenko said Thursday at an informal UN Security Council meeting to discuss conflict and hunger.
Russian Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Chumakov argued that sanctions, trade wars, the coronavirus pandemic and Western economic policies were shaking up the global food, energy and financial markets.
Mr Chumakov said Russia’s critics were trying to deflect focus from sanctions and the “economic egoism of the developed countries during the pandemic.”
Reporting by AP
By Simon Smale
Russia bans prominent Americans from visiting the country
Russia’s foreign ministry has announced that it has barred US Vice President Kamala Harris, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and 27 other prominent Americans from entering the country.
However, one of the people targeted by the sanctions, US State Department spokesman Ned Price, said he views the designation as an honour.
“I have to say it is nothing less than an accolade to earn the ire of a government that lies to its own people, brutalises its neighbours and seeks to create a world where freedom and liberty are put on the run and, if they have their way, extinguished,” Mr Price told reporters in Washington.
In a statement on its website Thursday, the ministry says the move came as a response to “ever-widening anti-Russian sanctions” brought on by the Biden administration.
It claimed to be targeting top executives, public intellectuals and journalists shaping what it referred to as “the Russophobic narrative” prevailing in US public debate.
Alongside Ms Harris and Mr Zuckerberg, the ban includes top defence and justice officials; the chief executives of LinkedIn and Bank of America; high-profile foreign affairs commentators; as well as the editor of the Russia-focused Meduza news website.
Reporting by AP
By Simon Smale
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of St Nicholas makes a statement about the War in Ukraine
Australia's Ukrainian Orthodox community is gathering this weekend to commemorate its traditional Easter services.
The war in Ukraine is expected to feature heavily, with the Canberra Ukrainian Orthodox Church of St Nicholas displaying 100 crosses with red-stained t-shirts to remember the children killed in the conflict.
"[My daughter] Natalie came up with the idea to make a representation because she said when you read numbers on a page, it's very difficult to visualise just how many children have been killed and this is a visible display," Father Michael Solomko told Patricia Karvelas on RN Breakfast this morning.
"[The t-shirts] symbolise the terror and the horror those children experienced before they were killed."
Fr Solomko said congregations around the country are praying for Ukraine.
"The [community is] really feeling it acutely," Fr Solomko said.
"The pain, the anger, the agony, the anguish, the worry, the helplessness that feel is just something that can't be explained in words.
"It's a horrible feeling and all of our community feels it and the church is a place where we can come and express our feelings and pray and live with that hope that this will end."
Fr Solomko said passers by often walk away from the display shaking their heads 'in disbelief".
By Simon Smale
Ukrainian children prepare for Orthodox Easter in Romania
Romanian authorities put on an event for Ukrainian refugee children on Maundy Thursday at the Romexpo convention centre, where refugees are staying in the capital, Bucharest.
Orthodox worshipers, which form the majority of Romanians, celebrate Easter Sunday on April 24.
At the convention centre, beds have been prepared in case of a further influx of refugees fleeing the war.
By Simon Smale
Battle for Mariupol far from over: Azov commander
A commander of a unit in the Azov Regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard on Thursday said the battle for Mariupol was far from over.
Konstantin Nemichev, who heads the Kraken unit, admitted the situation in the besieged port city was hard but Azov soldiers continued to hold off thousands of Russian forces.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday claimed control over Mariupol, even as its defenders are still holding out at a giant seaside steel mill.
His statement reflected the importance of the city on the Sea of Azov.
It appeared to be an attempt to declare victory without storming the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance there: the Azovstal plant.
Mr Nemichev's fighters are among the troops holding up the defence at the massive mill.
He said that by holding off the Russians at Mariupol, the Ukrainian forces were stopping this "10,000-strong army" from joining the battle for control of the Donbas.
"The boys in Mariupol are carrying out a huge and important mission," he added.
Mr Nemichev said Azov troops have been battling Russian forces in the Kharkiv region and were "ready..., waiting for the right weather to continue liberating our land there".
He said it was unlikely that Putin would stop the latest push because Russians, "even those who support him", would not understand if he were to retreat now.
But he was adamant that Putin would lose the battle for the Donbas, after which the Russian leader "most likely will be gone".
And "after that the regime will fall," Mr Nemichev said, adding that only at that point would Ukraine be able to negotiate with Russia.
The Azov regiment is a seasoned volunteer force that is widely considered one of Ukraine’s most capable units.
It was formed in 2014 by far-right activists led by Andriy Biletsky at the start of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.
It eventually became part of Ukraine's National Guard, but many of its troops are members of the far-right political group, the National Corps, that was formed by Mr Biletsky.
Reporting by AP
By Simon Smale
Ukraine's Elina Monfils says anti-war Russians and Belarusians should dodge Wimbledon ban
Earlier this week, Wimbledon made the decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players from the 2022 event, but there has been a considerable backlash to the decision.
The men's and women's governing bodies have criticised the decision, while Billie Jean King said she "cannot support the banning of individual athletes from any tournament, simply because of their nationality" although acknowledged the situation was "complex".
World number eight Andrey Rublev, from Russia, described Wimbledon’s ban as “complete discrimination against us” and believed that it “will not change anything”.
Both Rublev and Aussie John Millman called on Wimbledon to donate their profits to the war effort instead.
Now, Ukrainian world number 25 Elina Monfils says Russian and Belarusian tennis players who denounce Moscow's invasion of her country should be allowed to play at Wimbledon.
By Simon Smale
Russia captures 42 villages in Donetsk region
Russian forces captured 42 villages in the eastern Donetsk region on Thursday, but Ukraine might take them back, an aide to the chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told national television.
"Today 42 villages were added to the list of those that have been occupied. This is at the expense of the Donetsk region," said the aide, Olena Symonenko.
"This happened today [Thursday] and might be that our forces will win them back tomorrow."
Reporting by Reuters
By Simon Smale
New satellite images appear to show scores of fresh graves near Mariupol
Here are more details on one of our earlier posts about satellite images appearing to show more than 200 new graves at a cemetery in the Ukrainian town of Manhush near Mariupol.
The Mariupol City Council said as many as 9,000 civilians could be buried in mass graves in the village.
In a post on Telegram, the city council quoted Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko calling the site ”the new Babi Yar”.
Babi Yar in Kyiv is the site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany's forces during its campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II, where more than 30,000 people were estimated to have been killed.
“Then Hitler killed Jews, Roma and Slavs. And now Putin is destroying Ukrainians. He has already killed tens of thousands of civilians in Mariupol,” he was quoted as saying.
“This requires a strong reaction from the entire world. We need to stop the genocide by any means possible.”
By Simon Smale
US calls for Russia to pay for Ukraine rebuild
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Russia should shoulder some of Ukraine's rebuilding costs at the end of the war.
At a news conference on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings, Ms Yellen said Russia should shoulder some of Ukraine's rebuilding costs.
"It's clear that the rebuilding costs, ultimately, in Ukraine are going to be enormous," Yellen said.
"[Looking] to Russia one way or another to help provide some of what's necessary for Ukraine to build is something I think we ought to be pursuing."
But she cautioned that using seized Russian central bank reserves in the United States to rebuild Ukraine would be a "significant step" that would need discussions and agreement with international partners.
"It's one that you would carefully need to think through the consequences of," Ms Yellen said.
"I wouldn't want to do so lightly."
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, who attended the conference in person, said Ukraine's GDP could decline by 30 per cent to 50 per cent, with direct and indirect losses totalling $US560 billion ($760 billion) so far.
That total is more than three times the size of Ukraine's economy, at $US155.5 billion ($211 billion) in 2020, according to World Bank data.
"If we do not stop this war together, the losses will increase dramatically," Mr Shmyhal said, adding that Ukraine would need a rebuilding plan similar to the post-World War Two Marshall Plan that helped to rebuild a war ravaged Europe.
Reporting by Reuters
By Simon Smale
Zelekskyy thanks US for further military package
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the United States for the new package of $800 million in military aid, which he said was “just what we were waiting for.”
The latest military aid, announced Thursday by President Joe Biden, includes heavy artillery, ammunition and drones for the escalating battle in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Mr Zekenskyy has urged Western countries to speed up the deliveries of weapons to help Ukraine fend off the Russian offensive.
“The occupiers continue to do everything possible to give themselves a reason to speak about at least some kind of victory,” Mr Zelenskyy said late Thursday in his nightly video address to the nation.
“They are building up their forces, bringing in new tactical battalions and trying even to begin a so-called ‘mobilisation’ in the regions they occupy in Ukraine.”
Mr Zelenskyy also warned Ukrainians living in areas of southern Ukraine under the control of Russia troops not to provide them with their IDs, which he said could be used “to falsify a so-called referendum on our land” to create a Moscow-friendly government.
Reporting by AP
By Simon Smale
Mariupol residents arrive in Zaporizhzhia
Those residents from the eastern city of Mariupol that have been able to be evacuated from the besieged town have been taken west to refugee centres in the central city of Zaporizhzhia, on the Dnipro River.
By Simon Smale
US supplies 'Ghost' Drones to Ukraine
The White House says over 121 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems will be provided to Ukraine as part of the new arms package.
The United States and its allies have ramped up arms shipments to Kyiv ahead of Russia's announced offensive in eastern Ukraine.
The newly disclosed "Ghost" drones were developed by the US Air Force for attacking targets and are destroyed after a single use, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
The Pentagon said the drones were well suited for the coming fight in Ukraine's Donbas region, which officials have described as flat terrain reminiscent of the US state of Kansas.
"In discussions with the Ukrainians again about their requirements, we believed that this particular system would very nicely suite their needs, particularly in eastern Ukraine," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, without elaborating.
Little else is known about the drones, including their range and precise capabilities, and Kirby declined to offer more details about them.
Still, he did say they were designed mainly for striking targets.
Ukrainian forces have used Western weapons including Stinger and Javelin missiles along with drones, like the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 and US-made Switchblade, effectively to target Russian positions.
"This unmanned aero-system is designed for tactical operations, in other words, largely but not exclusively to attack targets," he added.
A small number of Ukrainians have been trained in the United States on how to operate Switchblade drones, single-use weapons that fly into their targets and detonate on impact.
Mr Kirby said training for the Ghost drones would be similar to the training on the Switchblade. But he declined to detail training plans or say how many Ukrainians would be trained on the new system.
Reporting by AP
By Simon Smale
Spain, Denmark leaders meet Ukrainian president in Kyiv
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has met Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Denmark's Mette Frederiksen in Kyiv.
Speaking at a joint press conference, Mr Sánchez said Spain had doubled its military support to Ukraine and added that "Europe stands united with Ukraine".
Mr Sánchez also announced that a Spanish navy ship carrying new military assistance was already on its way to Poland.
"Today from Kyiv I want to say to all the Ukrainian people that you are not alone, Europe is with you," Mr Sánchez said.
Ms Frederiksen said: "Putin has tried to divide us and to push Ukraine and Europe apart, and he has already failed in that.
"If anything, these last months have demonstrated without any question that Ukraine is a part of Europe."
Mr Sánchez and Ms Frederiksen arrived in the Ukrainian capital on Thursday.
Ms Frederiksen said Denmark would donate 600 million kroner ($118.6 million), calling it a "new, significant contribution".
Frederiksen said the total Danish military contribution is now 1 billion kroner ($197.5 million).
Denmark also will assist Ukraine in clearing mines in areas that are under Ukrainian control.
Spain also announced that it will reopen its embassy in the Ukrainian capital after closing it down within hours of the Russian invasion on February 24.
The leaders also visited the bombed streets of Borodyanka on Thursday.
They were accompanied by Ukrainian army and government officials, including Deputy President Olga Stefanishina.
Borodyanka, north of Kyiv, was left in ruins following attacks by the Russian army earlier this month.
Reporting by AP
By Simon Smale
Western officials say Russia can still win in Ukraine despite setbacks
Russian President Vladimir Putin could still win in Ukraine despite failing in his pre-war objectives, Western officials said on Thursday, adding that Russia had addressed some of the issues that had hindered it earlier on in the invasion.
Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago, and in recent weeks has refocused on the east of the country after failing to capture the capital Kyiv.
"Putin has clearly failed in meeting his initial pre-war objectives, but is still in a position to win," one official said, on condition of anonymity.
The official said that success for Russia might be the consolidation of Russian control over the Donbas and the creation a land bridge with Crimea, and in what he termed a worst-case scenario, there could be a renewed attack on Kyiv.
The official added that despite these possible outcomes, the invasion of Ukraine would remain a strategic mistake for Russia, given the substantial losses its army has suffered, the stubborn resistance of Ukraine and the way the war has changed Europe's security architecture to Russia's detriment.
"It has been a strategic blunder for Russia," he said.
Another official said that Russia had started to address some of the issues that had hindered its army at the start of the invasion, but the way in which forces were manoeuvring, often in long columns, was still causing them problems.
"Command and control has become more effective... it's clear that they're being smarter about how they're using UAVs and integrating those into their forces as they advance, and how they're using artillery," the official said.
"We've not yet seen them improve the way in which they're manoeuvring, although when they're getting their forces into the fight, they're being a bit more joined up."
Reporting by Reuters
