160 cars reportedly leave Mariupol after civilians were trapped for weeks; former minister stresses need for diplomacy to reduce risk of nuclear war.
20:16 Pjotr Sauer
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 1, 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 1 employee Marina Ovysannikova, 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 1 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.
20:11
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 March 7.
The court in The Hague, in the Netherlands, said in a statement it would announce its judgment on Wednesday at 1500 Greenwich Mean Time (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.
19:40
A poignant note of defiance comes from, of all places, the Eurovision Song Contest.
The organizers 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.
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 “back-up 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 February 25 - 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 May 10-14 in Turin. Organizers said this year’s contest would focus on the theme of peace.
19:27
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.
Memo just sent to Fox News employees on injuries sustained today by a network correspondent in Kyiv, Benjamin Hall: pic.twitter.com/JvFid5qBue
“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 Antonovaircraft 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.
Russia has denied reports that it has asked China for military equipment, claiming it has sufficient military clout to fulfil all of its aims in Ukraine without any need for help from Beijing. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russian troops could take “major population centres under full control” in Ukraine.
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.
18:55
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.
18:49 Julian Borger
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.
18:40 Maya Yang
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.
18:36
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.
18:24
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.
18:18
'Almost all' of the Russian advances in Ukraine 'remain stalled', US defence official says
18:16
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:
Senior U.S. defense official on Russia: "Clearly, they are increasing the amount of long-range fires they are applying to these cities, these population centers that are holding out … They are obviously continuing the bombardment and increasing that, no doubt about it.”
Russia still has not achieve air superiority over Ukraine, senior U.S. defense official says. But he couches by saying Russia has not achieved air superiority over "all of Ukraine."
Last week, lawmakers sent a letter to POTUS suggesting Russia had air superiority already.
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).
17:50
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.
Summary
17:25
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 Antonovaircraft 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.
Russia has denied reports that it has asked China for military equipment, claiming it has sufficient military clout to fulfil all of its aims in Ukraine without any need for help from Beijing. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russian troops could take “major population centres under full control” in Ukraine.
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.
16:48 Lorenzo Tondo
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.
16:44
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.
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.
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.
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.
A technical pause has been taken in the negotiations until tomorrow. For additional work in the working subgroups and clarification of individual definitions. Negotiations continue...
EU agrees to freeze Roman Abramovich's assets – diplomatic sources
16:09
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.
Russian forces blow up explosives near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, reports say
16:03
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.
⚡️Energoatom: Russian troops blew up explosives at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
Ukraine’s state-run nuclear energy company said on March 14 that the explosives had been blown up near the Russian-controlled Ukrainian plant’s main reactor and that further explosions are planned.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 14, 2022
Energoatom reports that #russian terrorists who seized Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant blew up ammunition near Unit 1.
UA calls it a terrorist attack & demands that the @iaeaorg intervene immediately.
What are you waiting for? When will NPP be blown up & a new Chornobyl come?
Russia is going to blow up ammunition in front of the Zaporizhzhia NPP power unit.
In the next hour, the occupiers, who captured the #Zaporizhzhia NPP, plan to begin "disposal" of ammunition right on the site of the station near the ruins of the ZNPP training center.
— Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (@ua_parliament) March 14, 2022
Ukraine's PM warns conflict "can become a third world war"
15:57
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.
15:43
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.
Ukraine PM says Russian forces "behaving like terrorists" and are "killing children"
15:30
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.
15:27
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”.
14:53 Katy Fallon
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.
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.
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.
Convoy of cars 'leaves' encircled Ukrainian city of Mariupol - Reuters
14:30
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.
“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.
14:15 Philip Oltermann
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.
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.
New: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi & Senate Majority Leader Schumer have announced a virtual address to the United States Congress delivered by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine on Wednesday, March 16th at 9 am.
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.
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.
13:43
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.
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.
12:38
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.
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.
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.
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.
12:31
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”.
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.
12:28
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.
Summary
12:28
The time in Kyiv is 1.15pm. Here is a round-up of the main headlines so far today:
Talks between Russia and Ukraineon 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 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.
12:26 Helena Smith
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.
Russian airstrike hits residential building in Kyiv
12:20 Jon Henley
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.
Russia denies asking China for military help in Ukraine
12:04
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.
11:45
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.
— Верховна Рада України (@verkhovna_rada) March 14, 2022
Summary
11:44
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 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.
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.
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”.
Talks between Russia and Ukraine resume
10:46
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.”
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. 🇺🇦 is a free dialogue within the society & an obligatory consensus. 🇷🇺 is an ultimatum suppression of its own society pic.twitter.com/O00fnCd1WP
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.
Note: We incorrectly said NEXTA TV is a Ukrainian media outlet in an earlier version of this post. This has now been rectified.
10:27 Peter Walker
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
Turkey says it can facilitate peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, but says that a ceasefire and humanitarian corridors are needed first.
09:30 Mark Sweney
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.
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.
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.
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. Apply more sanctions on Russia and isolate it fully. Help Ukraine force Putin into failure and you will avert a larger war.
“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.”
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.
07:55 Sarah Martin
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.
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.
Pregnant woman seen in images fleeing Ukrainian hospital bombing has died with her baby: reports
07:15
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.
“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.
07:12
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.”
Two killed after shell hit a residential building in Kyiv this morning
07:11
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.
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.
Leader of Russia’s Chechnya region claims to be outside Kyiv
06:01
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”.
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.
05:55
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.
Firefighters are putting out fire in the 9-story apartment block on 20 Bohatyrska St. in the Obolon neighborhood, according to the State Emergency Service.
Several lower floors are badly damaged after being hit at around 5 a.m.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 14, 2022
05:49
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.
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.”
05:21 Peter Hannam
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.
Global #foodprices rise to record high in February, led by vegetable oils & dairy products.
The @FAO Food Price Index averaged 140.7 points in Feb, up 3.9% from Jan, & 3.1 points higher than in Feb 2011.
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.
05:10 Lorenzo Tondo
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”.
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.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 13 March 2022
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.”
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.”
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.
04:34
Talks are set to continue between Ukraine and Russiatoday 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.
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…
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.
These soldiers are from a country whose president is a Jew Zelensky. Orthodox churches are also being destroyed in this country. Synagogues are not touched. Surprisingly, it turns out that Jews get along well with the Bandera Nazis.
the guardian
Mr.BadGuy
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These soldiers are from a country whose president is a Jew Zelensky. Orthodox churches are also being destroyed in this country. Synagogues are not touched. Surprisingly, it turns out that Jews get along well with the Bandera Nazis.