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

More than 500 international students trapped in Ukrainian town – as it happened

This liveblog is closing now but our coverage continues on this liveblog. Thank you for reading.

Updated

Summary

It is 7.27am in Ukraine as Russia’s war on its neighbour enters its ninth day. Here is where the crisis stands:

  • A fire broke out in a training building outside a nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia in the early hours of Friday, after being shelled by Russian forces, Ukrainian authorities said. An employee at the plant said Russian forces had fired on the facility and there was “a real threat of nuclear danger at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe”.
  • After burning for at least four hours amid reports Russian troops had prevented emergency teams from attending to the blaze, Ukrainian emergency services confirmed the blaze was extinguished at 6.20am local time. Fighting at the plant has also reportedly stopped, according to the mayor of Enerhodar, a town located south-east of the plant.
  • The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) earlier said it had put its Incident and Emergency Centre in “full 24/7 response mode” due to the “serious situation” unfolding at Zaporizhzhia.
  • However, US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm provided reassurance surrounding the Zaporizhzhia power plant reactors, saying there was no elevated radiation readings near the facility and the plant’s reactors are “protected by robust containment structures and reactors are being safely shut down.”
  • Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy made another appeal to Europe for help following the attack on the nuclear plant. He said: We warn everyone that not a single nation ever shelled nuclear power stations. For the first time in the history of humankind, the terrorist state commits nuclear terrorism.
  • British prime minister Boris Johnson called Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “reckless actions” a danger to the safety of Europe.
  • Russian forces continue to control both local and regional government buildings in the strategically important Black Sea port of Kherson, local authorities said. Russian forces appeared to be moving to cut Ukraine off from the sea via its key southern ports, claiming the capture of Kherson and tightening the siege of Mariupol.
  • Concern is mounting over the movements of a huge column of Russian military vehicles outside Kyiv. While a US defence official suggested it appeared to have “stalled”, there was also speculation that an estimated 15,000 troops attached to it may be regrouping and waiting for logistical supplies before an assault on Kyiv.
  • In a televised speech shortly after his 90-minute call with Macron, Putin claimed Russian military operations in Ukraine were going according to plan. The president went on to accuse Ukrainian forces of using civilians as “human shields” while providing no evidence.

Fire at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant extinguished, officials say

Ukrainian emergency services have confirmed a fire in the training building of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant has been extinguished after a blaze burned for at least four hours throughout early Friday morning.

No casualties have so far been reported.

An update published to the State Emergency Services official Telegram account reads:

At 06:20 the fire in the training building of Zaporizhzhya NPP in Energodar was extinguished. There are no victims.”

Updated

Home rental company Airbnb Inc is suspending all operations in Russia and Belarus, according to chief executive officer Brian Chesky.

The mayor of Enerhodar, a town located about 150km south-east of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, has said fighting at the plant has stopped, according to BBC Ukrainian, citing a local broadcaster.

The news comes after the plant reportedly sustained several hours of heavy shelling and a fire which broke out on the third, fourth and fifth floor of a building at the complex, according to Ukrainian emergency officials.

Updated

Ukrainian emergency services have confirmed a fire in the training building of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant has been localised just before 6am local time.

An update published to the State Emergency Services official Telegram account reads:

At 05:55 a fire in the training building (size 60x40 m) of Zaporizhzhya NPP in Enerhodar was localised on an area of 2 thousand square meters.”

Guardian reporters Calla Wahlquist and Donna Lu have compiled an explainer on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant with all the details you need to know.

You can read their full report below.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says it has puts its Incident and Emergency Centre in “full 24/7 response mode” due to the “serious situation” unfolding at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

IAEA director general, Rafael Gross, added he was “deeply concerned” with the situation and had spoken with Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmygal to monitor and stay in close contact with Ukraine’s nuclear regulator and operator.

https://twitter.com/rafaelmgrossi/status/1499595087432626176?s=20&t=UvSEC6j6NoH1WTvVJ9ZfTg

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau has also confirmed he has spoken with Ukraine’s president Zelenskiy about the “horrific attacks “at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

“These unacceptable attacks by Russia must cease immediately,” Trudeau said.

Ukrainian emergency services have confirmed rescue teams are currently on the site of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant to extinguish the fire which started earlier in the morning in the training building.

Earlier, the agency said Russian troops has prevented emergency teams from attending to the blaze.

However, in an update published to its official Telegram account just after 5.30am local time, the service said as of 5.20am, SES units had been deployed to put out the fire in the training building.

Meanwhile, US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has provided more reassurance surrounding the reactors at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, confirming she had spoken with Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Galushchenko.

In an update posted to Twitter, Granholm said:

We have seen no elevated radiation readings near the facility.

The plant’s reactors are protected by robust containment structures and reactors are being safely shut down.”

Updated

Ukrainian emergency services are saying Russian troops are preventing them from extinguishing a fire that continues to burn at a nuclear power plant after it was struck by shelling.

In an update published to its official Telegram account at 4am local time, the State Emergency Services said:

The occupiers do not allow the SES units [Ukrainian public rescue teams] to start eliminating the consequences of the fire.”

The agency said that one of the buildings of the plant’s training complex “continues to burn”, adding that “the fire covered 3, 4, 5 floors of a five-storey building.”

Updated

Corroborating an early analysis from the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Julian Borger, reporter Donna Lu brings us another perspective from Tony Irwin, an honorary associate professor at the Australian National University.

According to Iwin, the chances of explosion, nuclear meltdown or radioactive release from the Zaporizhzhya power plant are low.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, the largest in Europe, contains six 950 megawatt pressurised water nuclear (PWR) reactors.

Irwin said the PWR reactors are “a lot safer” than the reactors at Chernobyl, and did not appear to be damaged yet. The reactors have large concrete contaminants and built-in fire protection systems, he said, adding:

“Obviously, it’s not a good idea if you start shooting massive missiles at reactors.

The PWR type is a much safer sort of reactor, because it’s a two-circuit design reactor. The water that keeps the reactor cool is on a separate circuit to the second one, which actually supplies the power to the turbine and the outside.

The chance of a [radioactive] release from this sort of reactor is a lot lower.

These reactors have back-up emergency cooling systems as well. In addition to the normal reactor cooling, they got a passive system, they’ve got high pressure injection systems, they’ve got low-pressure injection systems.

The passive cooling systems work in the absence of electricity supply or diesel generators, Irwin said.

“Ultimately if they disabled all the outside supplies [of electricity] and all the diesel generators, eventually there won’t be enough cooling and you’ll melt the core. But I think we’re a long way off from that at the moment.

Irwin, who operated nuclear power plants in the UK for three decades, is a former manager of the open-pool Australian lightwater (OPAL) reactor, Australia’s only nuclear reactor.

A shutdown of the Zaporizhzhya plant would lead to a “severe loss of power in Ukraine”, he said.

A fire is reportedly still burning in Europe’s largest nuclear power plant located in Zaporizhzhia, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Services.

Andriy Tuz, a spokesperson for the plant appeared on Telegram earlier in the morning around 3am local time, saying: “There is a real threat of a nuclear danger at the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe. We demand that they stop the heavy weapons fire at the energy blocks of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.”

Video footage of the fire - which broke out early in the morning on Friday - can be viewed below.

Updated

Here is an analysis on the significance of the nuclear power plant attack from the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Juian Borger.

The confinement chambers of a nuclear reactor are built to withstand heavy impact and even bombing, while the VVER pressurised water reactor itself is designed to shut down in an emergency. VVER reactors are considered much safer than the type of reactor that blew up in Chernobyl in 1986, for example.

But nuclear safety experts warned that any interruption to the power supply that affects the cooling system could start a chain of events that could lead to disaster, as could a direct hit on the spent fuel pools which are not as well protected as the reactors.

“If the building is not damaged and if the reactors entered safe shut down, and have secondary or tertiary cooling systems then there should be little risk. If those conditions are not met, there is a significant risk,” Jon Wolfsthal, a former senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the national security council, said on Twitter.

The Zaporizhzhia plant in south-eastern Ukraine – which houses six of the country’s 15 nuclear reactors – as well as the neighbouring town of Energodar, have been surrounded by Russian troops since the beginning of the week.

Read the full story below.

Johnson says Putin's 'reckless actions' now 'threaten the safety of all of Europe'

British prime minister Boris Johnson has spoken with Ukrainian President Zelenskiy after news broke about a fire at the nuclear power station in Zaporizhzhia, calling Putin’s “reckless actions” a danger to the safety of Europe.

A Downing Street spokeswoman called the situation “gravely concerning”. PA Media reports the spokeswoman said:

Both leaders agreed that Russia must immediately cease its attack on the power station and allow unfettered access for emergency services to the plant.

The Prime Minister said the reckless actions of President Putin could now directly threaten the safety of all of Europe.

He said the UK would do everything it could to ensure the situation did not deteriorate further.

The Prime Minister said he would be seeking an emergency UN Security Council meeting in the coming hours, and that the UK would raise this issue immediately with Russia and close partners. Both leaders agreed a ceasefire was crucial.”

Updated

Zelenskiy accuses Russia of 'nuclear terrorism', repeating Chernobyl

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has made another appeal to Europe for help following the attack on Ukraine’s nuclear plant.

Europe must wake up now. The largest nuclear station in Europe is on fire. Right now Russian tanks are shelling nuclear units. Those are the tanks that have thermal vision, so they know where they are shelling. They prepared for it.

I address all Ukrainians and all Europeans to all people who know the word Chernobyl who know how much suffering and victims were caused by the explosion at the nuclear station. It was a global disaster. Hundreds of thousands of people fought against its consequences. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated.

Russia wants to repeat it but six times harder.

Europeans, please, wake up. Tell your politicians, Russian troops are shelling [the] Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, the city of Enerhodar. There are 6 energy unit. Six. One unit exploded in Chernobyl.

We warn everyone that not a single nation ever shelled nuclear power stations. For the first time in the history of humankind, the terrorist state commits nuclear terrorism.

Russian propagandists threatened to cover the world with nuclear ashes. Now it’s not a threat. It’s a reality. We don’t know how the fire at the station will end, when an explosion will happen, god willing, it won’t happen. Our guys always kept the station safe, so there were no provocations, so that nobody could seize the station, so that nobody could plant mines at the station then blackmail the whole world with a nuclear disaster.

We must stop Russian troops. Tell your politicians: Ukraine is 15 nuclear units. If there will be an explosion, it will the end to all of us, the end of Europe, the evacuation of Europe. Only immediate action of Europe can stop Russian troops and prevent the death of Europe from the disaster at a nuclear station.”

Updated

Our diplomatic editor has more on the call between Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the wake of the nuclear plant fire:

Authorities at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant say the facility is secured and “nuclear safety is now guaranteed” after Russian military shelling starts fire, Agence France-Presse reports.

US President Joe Biden has just spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the White House continues to monitor the fire at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

According to readout of the call published by the White House Press Office, Biden joined Zelenskiy in urging Russia to cease its military activities in the area and allowing firefighters and emergency responders to access the site.

Biden also spoke with under secretary for nuclear security of the US Department of Energy and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to receive an update on the situation at the plant.

Updated

Andrey Tuz, spokesman for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, has said shelling has stopped for the time being, but the situation is extremely uncertain.

Speaking to the BBC Russian Service, he said:

They bombed everything they could, including blocks and everything else. Now the information is being clarified, it’s hard to say everything. [To the station] a white car, representatives of the Russian military, has left. It’s flashing with its headlights. Now it’s being determined whether they will be approached for negotiations, or how to proceed further.”

Updated

A series of photos from the air and on the ground provide some more context as to the location and significance of the recent Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant fire.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as seen in google earth.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as seen in google earth. Photograph: Google Earth
A blast seen on CCTV footage at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant.
A blast seen on CCTV footage at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant. Photograph: YouTube
The plant is surrounded by a nearby village.
The plant is surrounded by a nearby village. Photograph: Igor Chekachkov/Commissioned for The Guardian
Two cooling towers are seen at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Station.
Two cooling towers are seen at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Station. Photograph: OlyaSolodenko/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Radiation 'within normal limits', officials say

The Ukrainian State Emergency Service is reporting that radiation and fire safety conditions at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are “within normal limits”.

An update on the agency’s official Telegram account reads:

As of 02:26 in the city of Energodar at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the third power unit was disconnected from the unified energy system (only Unit 4 is operating). Of the six power units, one is currently operating.

Radiation and fire safety conditions at nuclear power plants are within normal limits.

Fire condition at the NPP is normal.”

The agency said a fire broke out in the training building outside the NPP, however the Guardian has been unable to verify these claims.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the Ukraine regulator told the agency there has been “no change” reported in radiation levels at the plant.

Updated

Here’s exactly where the attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in south-east Ukraine took place early on Friday morning.

Updated

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says they are aware of reports of shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and are in contact with Ukrainian authorities.

According to a statement, the IAEE said Ukraine had informed the agency that a large number of Russian tanks and infantry “broke through the block-post” to the town of Enerhodar, a few kilometres from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP).

Director general Rafael Mariano Grossi appealed for an immediate halt to the use of force at Enerhodar and called on the military forces operating there to refrain from violence near the nuclear power plant.

He added the IAEA continues to consult with Ukraine and others with a view to provide “maximum possible assistance to the country” as it seeks to maintain nuclear safety and security.

Updated

The Guardian’s Julian Borger has spoken to Mariana Budjeryn, an Ukrainian expert at the project on managing the atom at Harvard University’s Belfer Center.

Budjeryn said:

Saying that a reactor building is hit doesn’t tell us much, because the most vulnerable [part of] this is the electricity and water supply.

If the electricity is taken out, the back up generators kick in, but if those don’t kick in or their diesel fuel is set on fire, for example, the pumps can’t pump cold water into the reactor and into the spent fuel pools. That’s necessary to keep the nuclear reaction moderated. Otherwise the water will boil out and the core will go critical and explode.

If the core explodes, there’s hope that the confinement chamber will capture the radiation from release into the environment. Confinement chambers are designed with withstand some level of impact even bombing.

But of course we don’t know how they will stand to this intensity of shelling

BUT spent fuel pools - the fuel there is not as active, but they are usually overstuffed - so less active but more tightly packed material, also dangerous for going critical if the cooling system fails. And spent fuel pools are not covered by hardened concrete confinement chambers.

We learned about how vulnerable spent fuel pools are during Fukushima

The backup generators failed and the water pumping system failed - it was lucky that ocean water flooded those and the reactor cores to provide cooling.”

Alphabet Inc’s Google has said is has stopped selling online advertising in Russia, a ban that covers search, YouTube and outside publishing partners, Reuters reports.

The move by the world’s top seller of online ads by revenue follows similar pauses in Russia by smaller internet companies Twitter Inc and Snap Inc.

Ukraine’s foreign minister is now confirming reports of a fire at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, warning an explosion could have devastating consequences.

In a tweet issued just after 2.30am local time, Dmytro Kuleba said:

Russian army is firing from all sides upon Zaporizhzhia NPP, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Fire has already broke out.

Russians must IMMEDIATELY cease the fire, allow firefighters, establish a security zone!”

Updated

Fire breaks out at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

A fire has broken out in Europe’s largest nuclear power plant located in Zaporizhzhia, according to an announcement from plant employees and the mayor of the nearby town of Enerhodar.

“As a result of continuous enemy shelling of buildings and units of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is on fire,” Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov said on his Telegram channel just after 1.30am local time, citing what he called a threat to world security.

Orlov recorded a short video message which has now been shared my multiple local Ukrainian media outlets, urging Russian troops to immediately stop shelling the plant.

The official earlier said Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops on the city’s outskirts and reported that a Russian military column was heading toward the nuclear plant. Loud shots and rocket fire were heard late Thursday.

According to a Telegram message posted by an employee at the plant, Russian troops fired at the nuclear facility.

Attention! Equipment of the Russian Federation is firing at the Zaporozhye NPP.

There is a real threat of nuclear danger at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. We demand a ceasefire from heavy equipment at the Zaporozhye NPP!

As of 2.30am local time, the employee added that firefighters have been unable to reach the scene of the fire, claiming the outbreak was a result of shots by Russian troops.

Ukrainian news agencies UNIAN and Hromadske also report that a fire has started at the nuclear power plant.

It remains unclear exactly where the fire is located within the plant or the damage inflicted so far.

The city on the Dnieper River accounts for one-quarter of the country’s power generation.

Updated

Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you as my colleague Maanvi Singh signs off.

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

The UK’s defence secretary Ben Wallace has told the BBC that Russia’s military strategy is not going to plan.

Wallace said logistics recovered from armoured vehicles show the Russian army is behind schedule - and that plans to appeal to Ukrainians as “liberators” have failed.

President Putin on the other hand has insisted Russia’s invasion is “going to plan” in a televised address on Thursday.

Today so far

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

  • Russian forces are in control of both local and regional government buildings in the strategically important Black Sea port of Kherson, local authorities said. Russian forces appeared to be moving to cut Ukraine off from the sea via its key southern ports, claiming the capture of Kherson and tightening the siege of Mariupol.
  • Concern is mounting over the movements of a huge column of Russian military vehicles outside Kyiv. While a US defence official suggested it appeared to have “stalled”, there was also speculation that an estimated 15,000 troops attached to it may be regrouping and waiting for logistical supplies before an assault on Kyiv.
  • Another key objective for Russian forces in the south-east was Zaporizhzhia and its nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest. Russian troops were trying to break through a barricade to the plant erected by residents and territorial defence forces.
  • At least 33 civilians had been killed in a Russian airstrike on a residential area in the northern city of Chernihivon Thursday, Ukrainian authorities say. The death toll across Ukraine is continuing to rise.
  • Vladimir Putin has told Emmanuel Macron that Kyiv’s “refusal to accept Russia’s conditions” means he will continue to pursue his war in Ukraine, the Élysée Palace has said, adding: “We expect the worst is yet to come.”
  • In a televised speech shortly after his 90-minute call with Macron, Putin claimed Russian military operations in Ukraine were going according to plan. The president went on to accuse Ukrainian forces of using civilians as “human shields” while providing no evidence.
  • Ukraine and Russia agreed to create humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians in a second round of talks this afternoon, but the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the outcome of today’s talks had fallen short of Ukraine’s hopes. A third round of talks is set to take place at the start of next week, the Belarus state news agency Belta cited Podolyak as saying.
  • The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has imposed sanctions on the Uzbekistan-born Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, whose commercial links to Everton football club have been suspended, and the Russian former deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov, the Foreign Office has said.
  • The Pentagon has established communication with the Russian ministry of defense, “for the purpose of preventing miscalculation, military incidents, and escalation”, a defense official told the AP. That such a “deconfliction” line has been established has not been officially announced yet, but multiple news organizations have confirmed the news. The line was reportedly established on 1 March.

– Leonie Chao-Fong, Maanvi Singh


According to GlobalCheck, a service that tracks Internet censorship in the CIS countries, the BBC is now blocked in Russia, as is Deutsche Welle:

This comes after the EU blocked content from Russian state-backed RT and Sputnik. The UK, fearing an outright ban could lead to reciprocal action by Moscow against the BBC, instead asked Ofcom to monitor and investigate RT’s output.

But the EU sanction de facto got RT off UK airwaves, because Sky received its RT broadcasts from Luxembourg.

The Biden administration will allow Ukrainians in the US Temporary Protected Status, a designation that will them to continue living and working in the country for 18 months.

Department of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the news today:

Some 75,000 Ukrainians in the US will be eligible to apply.

The move comes after immigrant advocates pushed for the US to quickly accommodate Ukranians already in the US as Russian began bombarding their home country. But the US has yet to extend similar protections for tens of thousands of Afghans in US prior to and following the chaotic evacuation last summer.

More than 500 international students trapped in Ukrainian town battered by shelling

Emmanuel Akinwotu, Julian Borger and Lisa O’Carroll report:

More than 500 international students are trapped in Sumy, a town 40km from Ukraine’s northeast border that has been battered by days of shelling by Russian forces.

Most of the students are Nigerian, while others are from Ghana, Ethiopia, Angola, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ireland, India, Lebanon and Turkey. They have all suddenly found themselves stranded in a war zone.

Trains and buses have stopped running; roads and bridges out of the city have been destroyed and fighting has been reported in the city’s streets.

The students have remained in five hostel buildings since the Russian invasion began last week, after advice from their university to stay behind – even as many Ukrainian students fled.

Oluwaseun Adefemi, a Nigerian medical student who arrived in Sumy in January, said that food and water supplies were already running low and it was no longer safe to head to local stores.

“We are hearing blasts every day. We have to run into our bunkers each time. Yesterday we heard the blasts at six or seven in the morning. When we hear them, we run to the basement – that’s our makeshift bunker,” he said, speaking by telephone late on Wednesday.

“We are running out of food, we’re running out of water. What we have now is mainly soda water,” Adefemi said.

While the conflict has so far mainly focused on the outskirts of the city, fears are rising that troops may soon enter the city.

Read more:

The Guardian view on Putin’s siege tactics in Ukraine: a war crime by another name

The fall of the first Ukrainian city to the Russian army bodes ill for the rest of the country. Russian forces, reports suggest, surrounded and starved the southern Dnieper River port of Kherson into submission. Kherson’s mayor told reporters that many citizens had been left dead and unrecognisable by high-calibre weapons used by the Russians to bombard his city. Vladimir Putin’s siege tactics, familiar to anyone who remembers Russia’s role in the 2017 battle for Aleppo in Syria, today amount to war crimes.

Russian soldiers are threatening to destroy Ukrainian cities unless they surrender. The mayor of Mariupol, on the Black Sea, said that Mr Putin’s army was attacking rail lines and road bridges, as well as cutting off water and electricity, to prevent civilians from escaping the shelling. In 2014, Mr Putin described Kyiv as “the mother of Russian cities”. That his military is preparing to encircle the Ukrainian capital with enough firepower to leave it a charred ruin shows his potential descent into criminal folly. One can only hope that one day the Russian president will be sitting in a dock at The Hague where his ramblings can be exposed for what they are: no defence for the senseless killing of innocents.

The criminality of Mr Putin’s invasion is staggering. He is sowing death and panic in Ukraine, with apparent little regard for civilian lives. His war is only a week old and Russian forces are already raining down cluster munitions on residential areas. Airstrikes, Ukrainian officials claim, hit schools and homes in the Chernihiv region. The French president’s assessment after talking to Mr Putin that the “worst is still to come” in Ukraine is unlikely to be a scare tactic. Some of Mr Putin’s own troops appear to have no stomach for an offensive war in Ukraine on the basis that they are, as Moscow claims, protecting Russia’s strategic interests. Instead the Ukrainian military casts opposing soldiers as hapless teenage invaders and wretched conscripts. Forcing poor young men to fight in an illegal war ought to be added to the list of charges Mr Putin might face.

Read more:

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, has released a message to Ukrainians, saying that the Netherlands stands with them.

Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister has accused Russia of staging humanitarian aid as troops advance of Kherson, a strategically important Black Sea port. And Lyubov Sobol, a member of the Russian Opposition Coordination Council, is echoing him.

In justifying its war, Russia is investing a lot of time and effort in propaganda aimed at both Russians and Ukrainians.

My Guardian colleagues reported earlier:

US officials claim they have evidence of a Russian plan to make a “very graphic” fake video of a Ukrainian attack as a pretext for an invasion.

The alleged plot would involve using corpses, footage of blown-up buildings, fake Ukrainian military hardware, Turkish-made drones and actors playing the part of Russian-speaking mourners.

“We don’t know definitively that this is the route they are going to take, but we know that this is an option under consideration,” the deputy national security adviser, Jonathan Finer, told MSNBC, adding that the video “would involve actors playing mourners for people who are killed in an event that they would have created themselves”.

Finer added: “That would involve the deployment of corpses to represent bodies purportedly killed, of people purportedly killed in an incident like this.”

The Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, said the video would have purported to show a Ukrainian attack on Russian territory or Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine and would be “very graphic”. He added that the US believed that the plan had the backing of the Kremlin.

“Our experience is that very little of this nature is not approved at the highest levels of the Russian government,” Kirby said.

Sobol tweeted that a fake pro-Putin rally is being organized by Russian troops in Kherson.

The Pentagon has established communication with the Russian ministry of defense, “for the purpose of preventing miscalculation, military incidents, and escalation”, a defense official told the AP.

That such a “deconfliction” line has been established has not been officially announced yet, but multiple news organizations have confirmed the news. The line was reportedly established on 1 March.

The line would allow US and Russian forces to avoid crossing paths along the Polish border and the Black Sea, for example, while Russia advances on ukraine.

The US and Russia had set up a similar line of communication in the Syrian conflict after Russia began military action there.

Russia-Ukraine war: what we know so far

A week after invasion of Ukraine launched, ICC confirms it is gathering evidence of possible war crimes. Here’s what we know so far, from the Guardian’s Jon Henley and Samantha Lock:

Earlier today, Poland warned its citizens to leave Russia and Belarus due to ongoing fighting in Ukraine, reported Reuters:

The Polish foreign ministry said on Thursday Polish citizens should leave Russia and Belarus due to the situation in Ukraine.

“We recommend Polish citizens staying on the territory of the Russian Federation should leave its territory using available commercial and private transport,” it said, adding travel options were limited due to flights between the two countries being suspended.


It issued a similar recommendation regarding Belarus, adding: “In the event of a drastic deterioration of the security situation, a closure of borders or other unforeseen situations, evacuation may turn out to be considerably difficult or even impossible.”

Ukrainian atomic energy authorities have posted video online showing tracer fire at Ukraine’s biggest atomic plant, Zaporizhzhya.

Here’s the video that was posted to Youtube:

The Guardian’s Julian Borger wrote today about concerns from UN officials as Russian forces claimed that they had surrounded the nuclear plant:

The UN nuclear watchdog has voiced concern after Russian forces claimed to have surrounded Ukraine’s biggest atomic plant, and called for its workers to be left alone to do their jobs.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the Russian government had informed the agency that its troops had taken control of the area around the Zaporizhzhia plant in south-eastern Ukraine, the second biggest in Europe, housing six of the country’s 15 reactors.

In their letter to the IAEA, Russian officials insisted that Ukrainian staff at the plant were continuing to “work on providing nuclear safety and monitoring radiation in normal mode of operation”.

However, the Ukrainian state enterprise running the country’s nuclear industry, Energoatom, accused the Russian military of “openly terrorizing employees of the station and residents of its satellite city Energodar”.

Read the full article here.

Updated

Earlier today, US prosecutors charged a Russian television producer and described oligarch, Konstantin Malofeyev, with violating sanctions related to Crimea, reported Reuters:

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday charged a television producer for Konstantin Malofeyev, described as a Russian oligarch, with violating Crimea-related sanctions, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said on Thursday.

John Hanick, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in February in London and the United States is seeking his extradition. Prosecutors said Hanick was charged with violating U.S. sanctions arising from Russia’s 2014 invasion of the Crimean peninsula.

Malofeyev is closely tied to Russian aggression in Ukraine, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

Amnesty International has criticised the EU decision to limit its Temporary Protection Directive (TPD), which will grant immediate protection in EU countries to people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine, to Ukrainian nationals.


On Thursday, EU member states watered down a proposal from the European commission that would have seen all long term residents given the protection.


Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s EU office said: “Everybody fleeing conflict must be provided with protection and help to establish themselves and we welcome that Ukrainians will be swiftly protected. But by restricting that assistance principally to Ukrainians fleeing conflict, the Council has also exposed the limitations of Europe’s solidarity.


“Today’s decision means that Ukrainians seeking safety in the EU will quickly get residence permits, be able to work, and be provided with suitable accommodation, welfare assistance, medical assistance, and education. It is now up to member states to decide if they will extend that to others fleeing Ukraine. We call on them to treat everyone fleeing this conflict equally.


“The Council’s decision today is a reminder that Europe has long had the tools to protect people fleeing war and help new arrivals, and the usual ‘Fortress Europe’ approach is a politically motivated choice. That this is happening for the first time but principally for displaced Ukrainian nationals shows that the EU’s approach is riddled with double standards.”

Updated

This just in: RT America, apart of the global RT network that is funded by the Russian government, is stopping production and laying off most of its staff, reports CNN’s Oliver Darcy:

The production company behind the American version of the Russian state-funded network RT laid off most of its staff on Thursday, according to a memo obtained by CNN.

Misha Solodovnikov, the general manager of the production company, T&R Productions, told staff that it will be “ceasing production” at all of its locations “as a result of unforeseen business interruption events.””Unfortunately, we anticipate this layoff will be permanent, meaning that this will result in the permanent separation from employment of most T&R employees at all locations,” Solodovnikov wrote in his memo to employees.

The layoffs would mean an effective end to RT America. The network, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s main mouthpieces in the US, was dropped earlier this week by DirecTV. The satellite carrier was one of the two major television providers in the US to carry the network.

This story is still developing.

Read the article here.

The UK culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, has written to TikTok, Twitter and Meta (the owner of Facebook and Instagram) asking them to block the online output of Kremlin-backed news services Russia Today and Sputnik.

Writing to the platforms’ UK heads, she said: “I want to urge you to do everything you can to apply the approach you are taking across the EU to block access both to RT and to Sputnik’s online output (including the latter’s radio and audio services) on your UK services.”

RT and Sputnik have already been blocked the platforms across the EU, while RT has already lost its Sky slot.

The Guardian has approached TikTok, Meta and Twitter for comment.

In a Twitter post, French president Emmanuel Macron said that during a conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin this morning, Putin again refused to stop attacks against Ukraine.

“I spoke to President Putin this morning. He refuses to stop his attacks on Ukraine at this point,” tweeted Macron. “It is vital to maintain dialogue to avoid human tragedy.”

Macron said that he will continue communicating with Putin, adding that, “We must avoid the worst.”

In a separate post, Macron continued: “Maintaining dialogue to protect the people, obtaining measures that will avoid human tragedy, putting an end to this war: this is the purpose of my commitment alongside President Zelensky and the international community,” ending his tweet by saying, “I am and will remain fully determined.”

Ukraine and Russia agree temporary, local ceasefires

This just in: Ukraine and Russia have agreed to temporary, local ceasefires to allow the evacuation of civilians as well as aid deliveries via safe corridors.

But some experts have warned that the creation of said “humanitarian corridors” and the backed ceasefires could be an opportunity for Russia to strategically resupply and regroup.

More analysis on how Russia may use the ceasefire periods from Emma Beals, a senior adviser at the European Institute of Peace:

Updated

Following up on newly announced sanctions against billionaire Alisher Usmanov and Russian former deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov by the UK, here’s a statement posted to Twitter from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on the additional penalties:

The UK has imposed more sanctions on leading oligarchs. These associates of Putin are now cut off from their significant interests in UK.

Summary

It is 9.18pm in Ukraine. Here’s where we stand right now:

  • Russian forces are in control of both local and regional government buildings in the strategically important Black Sea port of Kherson, local authorities said. Russian forces appeared to be moving to cut Ukraine off from the sea via its key southern ports, claiming the capture of Kherson and tightening the siege of Mariupol.
  • Concern is mounting over the movements of a huge column of Russian military vehicles outside Kyiv. While a US defence official suggested it appeared to have “stalled”, there was also speculation that an estimated 15,000 troops attached to it may be regrouping and waiting for logistical supplies before an assault on Kyiv.
  • Another key objective for Russian forces in the south-east appeared to be Zaporizhzhia and its nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest, where Russian troops were trying to break through a barricade to the plant erected by residents and territorial defence forces.
  • At least 33 civilians had been killed in a Russian airstrike on a residential area in the northern city of Chernihiv on Thursday, Ukrainian authorities say, with the death toll continuing to rise.
  • Vladimir Putin has told Emmanuel Macron that Kyiv’s “refusal to accept Russia’s conditions” means he will continue to pursue his war in Ukraine, the Élysée Palace has said, adding: “We expect the worst is yet to come.”
  • In a televised speech shortly after his 90-minute call with Macron, Putin claimed Russian military operations in Ukraine were going according to plan. The president went on to accuse Ukrainian forces of using civilians as “human shields” while providing no evidence.
  • Ukraine and Russia agreed to create humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians in a second round of talks this afternoon, but the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the outcome of today’s talks had fallen short of Ukraine’s hopes. A third round of talks is set to take place at the start of next week, the Belarus state news agency Belta cited Podolyak as saying.
  • The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has imposed sanctions on the Uzbekistan-born Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, whose commercial links to Everton football club have been suspended, and the Russian former deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov, the Foreign Office has said.

Updated

More on the US’s announcement of additional sanctions targeting more Russian oligarchs...

Here is an excerpt from the national security council fact sheet announcing the sanctions, with more context behind the additional penalties:

Today, the United States, in coordination with Allies and partners, is targeting additional Russian elites and family members who continue supporting President Putin despite his brutal invasion of Ukraine...

These individuals and their family members will be cut off from the U.S. financial system, their assets in the United States will be frozen and their property will be blocked from use. The Department of Treasury will share financial intelligence and other evidence where appropriate with the Department of Justice to support criminal prosecutions and seizure of assets.

Today, the United States will sanction an expansive list of Putin’s cronies and their family members. One of the elites is Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov, one of Russia’s wealthiest individuals and a close ally of Putin. His property will be blocked from use in the United States and by U.S. persons – including his superyacht, one of the world’s largest, and just seized by our ally Germany, and his private jet, one of Russia’s largest privately-owned aircraft.

The United States will also sanction Dmitry Peskov, who as Putin’s spokesman is a top purveyor of Putin’s propaganda. The United States will also impose visa restrictions on 19 oligarchs and 47 of their family members and close associates.

As President Biden said, [we] will continue to work with our Allies and partners to hold accountable the Russian oligarchs and corrupt leaders who are profiting from this violent regime.

The United States and governments all over the world will work to identify and freeze the assets Russian elites and their family members hold in our respective jurisdictions – their yachts, luxury apartments, money, and other ill-gotten gains.

Updated

The US will be issuing additional sanctions targeting more Russian oligarchs, including the billionaire Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov, the White House said today.

Here is a list of who will be targeted in this newly announced round, according to a fact sheet provided by a spokesperson with the national security council:

  • Nikolai Tokarev (his wife, Galina, daughter Mayya, and his two luxury real estate companies)
  • Boris Rotenberg (his wife, Karina, and his sons Roman and Boris)
  • Arkady Rotenberg (his sons Pavel and Igor and daughter Liliya)
  • Sergei Chemezov (his wife, Yekaterina, his son Stanislav, and stepdaughter Anastasiya)
  • Igor Shuvalov (his five companies, his wife, Olga, his son Evgeny and his company and jet, and his daughter Maria and her company)
  • Yevgeniy Prigozhin (his three companies, his wife, Polina, his daughter Lyubov, and his son Pavel)
  • Dmitry Peskov, President Putin’s press secretary
  • Alisher Usmanov (his superyacht, one of the world’s largest and just seized by Germany, and his private jet, one of Russia’s largest privately owned aircraft)

The US will also be placing visa restrictions on 19 oligarchs and 47 “family members and close associates”.

Updated

UK sanctions Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov

The UK foreign secretary Liz Truss has sanctioned the Uzbekistan-born Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov and Russian former deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov, the Foreign Office has said.




Updated

Drone footage shows devastated town near Kyiv

Drone footage shows debris and destroyed buildings as well as burnt-out Russian military vehicles in Borodyanka, a small town 60km north-west of Kyiv.

Smoke can be seen pouring out of a residential building destroyed by the shelling and several houses appear to be heavily damaged in the fight as well as Russian military vehicles.

The death toll from today’s shelling attack in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv has been updated to 33, the Ukrainian emergency services said.

At least 33 bodies have been recovered from rubble in the wake of airstrikes by Russian forces on Chernihiv, it said in an online post. The previous estimate was 22.

Rescue work has been temporarily suspended due to heavy shelling in the area, it said.

Ukraine and Russia agree to create humanitarian corridors

Ukraine and Russia agreed to create humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians in a second round of talks this afternoon, negotiators on both sides said.

In the aftermath of the talks that took place on the Poland-Belarus border, the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said talks with Russia had not yielded the results Kyiv hoped for.

But Podolyak said both sides envisaged a possible temporary ceasefire to allow for the evacuation of civilians.

That is, not everywhere, but only in those places where the humanitarian corridors themselves will be located, it will be possible to cease fire for the duration of the evacuation.

Both sides also reached an understanding on the delivery of medicines and food to the places where the fiercest fighting was taking place.

Without elaborating, Podolyak said the outcome of today’s talks had fallen short of Ukraine’s hopes.

On the Russian side, Russia’s main negotiator and former culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky, said:

The main question that we decided on today was the issue of saving people, civilians, who are in the zone of military clashes.

Russia calls on civilians who find themselves in this situation, if military actions continue, to use these humanitarian corridors.

Another Russian negotiator, the nationalist lawmaker Leonid Slutsky, said the agreements will be “implemented in the near future”.

Today’s talks mark the first time Ukraine and Russia have agreed to any form of progress on any issue since Russia invaded Ukraine a week ago.

A third round of talks is set to take place at the start of next week, the Belarus state news agency Belta cited Podolyak as saying.

A second round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations at the Belovezhskaya Pushcha on the Belarus-Poland border.
A second round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations at the Belovezhskaya Pushcha on the Belarus-Poland border. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

Here’s a bit more on Vladimir Putin’s speech this afternoon, where the Russian leader claimed military operations in Ukraine were going according to plan.

Putin’s televised comments appeared designed to rebut statements by western governments and intelligence agencies that the Russian advance has faltered in the face of logistical problems, tactical mistakes and fiercer-than-expected resistance from Ukraine.

I want to say that the special military operation is proceeding strictly in line with the timetable. According to plan. All the tasks that have been set are being successfully resolved.

He went on to give a number of examples of Russian soldiers’ “heroic” actions and said the families of Russian soldiers who had been killed during the fighting would be compensated.

Now on Ukrainian territory, our soldiers and officers are fighting for Russia, for a peaceful life for the citizens of Donbas, for the denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine, so that we can’t be threatened by an anti-Russia right on our borders that the west has been creating for years.

Russian president Vladimir Putin chairing a meeting with members of the Russian security council via a teleconference call at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on Thursday.
Russian president Vladimir Putin chairing a meeting with members of the Russian security council via a teleconference call at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on Thursday. Photograph: Andrey Gorshkov/Kremlin pool/Sputnik/EPA

Updated

A missile appeared to hit a residential building in central Chernihiv, northern Ukraine, in footage captured on dashcam.

The state emergency service of Ukraine said an oil depot in Chernihiv was also on fire after being hit by a shell.

Updated

Interpol has rebuffed Ukraine’s request to exclude Russia from its organisation, despite backing from both Britain and Poland who requested Russia’s suspension.

A spokesperson for the Interpol general secretariat told the Guardian:

Only the general assembly, Interpol’s supreme governing body comprising representatives from each of its 195 member countries, can vote on issues relating to membership. The Interpol general secretariat continues to monitor the situation concerning Ukraine closely.

The International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, is a supranational body providing investigational support to member states, primarily through its red notice system that flags suspects internationally.

Continuing to include Russia within Interpol grants security services access to the red notice database and potential broader support, despite accusations that Russia is a major abuser of the red notice system.

Rights groups point to the ability of authoritarian regimes to abuse Interpol’s red notice system in order to flag political dissidents or exiles. Critics also point to the opacity of Interpol’s internal affairs, including allowing Syria to rejoin the organisation last year after a decade-long suspension.

Ukraine’s minister for internal affairs, Denis Monastyrsky, wrote to Interpol earlier this week demanding Russia’s expulsion following its invasion of Ukraine.

“Russia should be expelled from Interpol for violating its basic principles and massive misuse of tools and services to cover up its crimes and persecute political enemies, particularly in Ukraine,” he wrote, according to the Ukrainian broadcasting organisation Hromadske.

Britain and Poland both backed Ukraine’s efforts, although they demanded that Interpol suspend Russia rather than exclude it. The British home secretary, Priti Patel, told parliament:

The Ukrainian government has today requested that the Russian government be suspended from its membership of Interpol and we will be leading all international efforts to that effect.

Poland’s police chief, Gen Jaroslaw Szymczyk wrote an impassioned personal letter to Interpol’s general secretary, Jürgen Stock.

I strongly believe that the world needs a clear, consistent and unambiguous message that we, police officers from all over the world, do not accept the warfare actions taken by the Russian Federation against Ukraine.

Dear Jürgen. We have known each other for many years. We have talked many times about our dream of a safer world, the need to protect victims and to definitely prosecute those who stand on the other side of the law and the good. This is a great responsibility. Today, dear friend, the world is telling us “I call”. It is time to turn words into actions.”

In a statement to the Guardian, a spokesperson for the Interpol general secretariat said the organisation remained committed to ensuring that red notice requests from member states adhered to the organisations’ rules.

Updated

In a Telegram group chat organised in answer to Ukraine’s government call for hackers to protect the country’s infrastructure from cyber-attacks and to conduct its own cyber missions, a hacking team called the Belarusian Cyber Partisans said it planned to target the Belarusian railway network, the news service reports.

Belarus has been a critical staging point for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the country’s railway network being used to transport Russian soldiers, the Belarusian Cyber Partisans told Reuters.

The “IT army” group chat also discussed targeting Russian telecom companies as well as Glonass – Russia’s satellite-based navigation system and alternative to GPS.

“We need to mobilise and intensify our efforts as much as possible,” one post in the Telegram chat read.

More than 237,000 people joined the Telegram channel in the days after Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, put out a call for the country’s hackers to join the cyberwar against Russia.

“There will be tasks for everyone,” Fedorov tweeted. “We continue to fight on the cyber front. The first task is on the channel for cyber specialists.”

Updated

A leader of Ukraine’s Muslim community, Sheikh Said Ismagilov, made an address to Russian Muslims serving as soldiers, asking: “Why did you come to kill us?”

He said Ukraine does not need “saving” - as per Vladimir Putin’s rationale for his invasion - and asked Muslims around the world to support Ukraine’s fight for survival.

Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a damaged logistic centre after shelling in Kyiv.
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a damaged logistic centre after shelling in Kyiv. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP
Russia has launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine, hitting cities and bases with airstrikes or shelling.
Russia has launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine, hitting cities and bases with airstrikes or shelling. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Ukraine and Russia have agreed to hold a third round of talks soon, Reuters cites a Ukrainian negotiator as saying.

The official said Ukraine did not receive the results it had counted on, but that both sides had reached an understanding on a joint provision of humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians.

Zelenskiy adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted this :

Updated

Ukrainian officials are warning that hackers have broken into local government websites to spread false reports that Ukraine has capitulated and signed a peace treaty with Moscow, Reuters reports.

An undisclosed number of official websites of “regional authorities and local governments” have been hijacked and used to spread “lies” about a deal to end the fighting, Ukraine’s state service of special communication and information protection said.

The agency said “the enemy” was responsible for the hacking spree. It was not immediately clear which websites it was referring to.

Updated

Europe has already received one million refugees from Ukraine in the week since the war began and will receive millions more, the European commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, has said.

She was speaking as EU interior ministers agreed on a temporary protection directive to grant Ukrainian nationals the right to live, work, and access healthcare, housing and education immediately for up to one year, without the need to go through lengthy asylum procedures.

If the conflict continued, or refugees could return safely, that status could be extended for a further two years. It would not offer any such rights to people from elsewhere who were in Ukraine as temporary workers or students.

The European commission’s original proposal was watered down in relation to “third country” nationals who have long-term residence in Ukraine: national asylum laws will apply to them.

It is understood that Poland and Hungary were the most vocal in opposing the initial proposal.

Updated

Thousands of people in cities across Russia have been defying police threats and staging protests against the invasion of Ukraine.

Authorities have a low tolerance for demonstrations and marches, and attending them can have serious consequences including fines, arrests and even imprisonment.

Putin claims Ukrainians 'brainwashed' and that they and Russians are 'one people'

Vladimir Putin has accused Ukrainian forces of using civilians as “human shields”.

In a live address, the president described Russian soldiers as “real heroes”, and though he admitted to having “lost a few small towns”, he insisted that Russia’s special military operation was going “according to plan”.

The “success” of the Russian army in Ukraine was an example of that “heroism”, Putin claimed.

He said Ukrainians and Russians were “one people” but that Ukrainians were “threatened and brainwashed”.

Putin went on to claim that Russian troops were providing humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee – in direct contradiction of what Ukraine has said.

Updated

Zelenskiy calls for direct talks with Putin as 'only way to stop war'

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called for direct talks with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, saying it was “the only way to stop this war”.

Speaking at a press conference, the Ukrainian president addressed Putin:

We are not attacking Russia and we do not plan to attack it. What do you want from us? Leave our land.

Referring to the Russian leader receiving world leaders at a now-famous enormously long table, Zelenskiy said:

Sit down with me. Just not 30 metres away like with [the French president, Emmanuel Macron].

He also called on the west to increase military aid to Ukraine, warning that the rest of Europe would be under threat if Russia was allowed to advance.

If you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes!

If we are no more, then God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia will be next. Believe me.

Updated

Russia has drawn up plans for public executions in Ukraine as and when cities are captured by Russian troops, Bloomberg reports.

Bloomberg cites a European intelligence official as saying that Moscow has drafted strategies to break morale in order to discourage Ukrainians from fighting back as cities fall under the Kremlin’s control.

The official said Moscow plans to crack down on protest, detain opponents and potentially carry out public executions, the news agency writes.

Updated

The death toll from today’s shelling attack in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv has now reached 22, the Ukrainian emergency services said.

The bodies of at least 22 civilians had been recovered from the rubble in the wake of Russian airstrikes, they said in an online post.

Rescue work was ongoing, they added, but did not specify where exactly the attack took place.

Earlier we reported that the governor of Chernihiv said at least nine people were killed and four wounded after the airstrike hit two schools and private houses.

Local press said there were several schools, kindergartens and a hospital in the nearby area.

Updated

Russian forces are closing in on two key nuclear power plants in the south of Ukraine, the acting head of Ukraine’s state-run nuclear company Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said.

Kotin said Ukraine still controls both plants including Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, but Russian troops have advanced to within 21 miles of the Zaporizhzhia plant and the South Ukraine power plant.

The mayor of Enerhoda, in which the Zaporizhzhia plant is located, said Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops for control of the south-eastern city.

Russian troops were trying to break through a barricade to the plant erected by local residents and territorial defence forces, Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said.

Another adviser, Vadym Denysenko, described the situation as alarming.

Russian forces took the Chernobyl plant last week. Speaking in an interview with Reuters, Kotin described Russia’s capture of the defunct nuclear power plant as “nuclear terrorism”.

Updated

Ukrainian soldiers unload weapons from the trunk of an old car, north-east of Kyiv.
Ukrainian soldiers unload weapons from the trunk of an old car, north-east of Kyiv. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images
Passports are checked as a volunteer carries a sleeping child into a train which prepares to depart from a station in Lviv, western Ukraine, enroute to Poland.
Passports are checked as a volunteer carries a sleeping child into a train preparing to depart from a station in Lviv, western Ukraine, en route to Poland. Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Six people have been rescued after a cargo ship sunk off the coast of Odesa due to an explosion, a senior Ukrainian official told Reuters.

Earlier we reported the Estonian-owned cargo ship, Helt, had sunk this afternoon, with two crew members in a life raft at sea and four others unaccounted for, according to the shipping agency’s managing director.

Victor Vyshniov, deputy head of Ukraine’s maritime administrator, has now said six crew members have been picked up by Ukraine’s rescue service.

The six have been taken to hospital in nearby Chernomorsk due to being in cold water.

Vyshniov provided no further details about the cause of the incident.

Updated

While FMQs in the Scottish parliament this lunchtime has been dominated by domestic issues, there was inevitable discussion of the Ukraine crisis, Libby Brooks writes.

On the subject of refugees, Nicola Sturgeon told the Holyrood chamber that there was a “moral, humanitarian obligation” to help those fleeing the war, adding that she wanted to “appeal directly to the prime minister to follow the example of the European Union and allow anyone fleeing the horror of Ukraine entry to the UK if they wish and deal with the paperwork later”.

Sturgeon also pledged action on oligarchs in Scotland, after the Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer challenged her about Vladimir Lisin, a close associate of Putin who has received hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of agricultural subsidies for his 1,210 hectare (3,000 acre) estate in Scotland.

Sturgeon said there would be an immediate review of such schemes, adding:

I have sought urgent advice on the maximum possible action the Scottish government can take against individuals or entities identifying as having close links with the Russian regime … including ending support from the public purse and freezing assets.

She said her government was also writing to Scottish businesses encouraging them to review and sever links with Russia.

Updated

Second round of Ukraine-Russia talks begin

A second round of talks between Ukraine and Russia have started, a Ukrainian presidential adviser has confirmed.

Mykhaylo Podolyak said he and other officials had begun talks with Russian delegates in Belarus.

The Ukrainian delegation’s agenda is to agree an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to leave frontline communities.

Updated

A Canadian-Israeli ice hockey player has described his harrowing escape from Ukraine, as foreign athletes in both Ukraine and Russia face life-threatening decisions over whether to stay or go.

Eliezer Sherbatov was with his team, HC Mariupol, of the Ukrainian Hockey League, in the Donetsk region last week preparing for a game against Kramatorsk when a bomb exploded outside their hotel.

“At 5am, I’m sleeping and hear: ‘Boom!’ You never hear that strong of a sound,” Sherbatov told TSN. “And it starts shaking, everything is shaking. So, a couple of metres away, the war started.”

Sherbatov said the team’s coach called a meeting at breakfast, where he explained: “Guys - the war has started. It’s unfortunate, but I would suggest you to stay put as a team. But if you choose to leave, it’s your decision.’”

Updated

Ukraine’s parliament has approved a bill to allow the seizure of assets or property in Ukraine owned by Russia or Russian citizens.

Under the law, the government can suggest assets for confiscation to the security council, which must then approve their transfer to state ownership, Reuters reported.

Updated

An advance team left the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague on Thursday to start investigating possible war crimes in Ukraine, its top prosecutor told Reuters in an interview.

Their departure came hours after the prosecutor Karim Khan said he would start collecting evidence as part of a formal investigation launched after Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began on 24 February.

“Yesterday I formulated a team and today they are moving to the region,” Khan said. “It’s an advanced team, comprised of investigators, lawyers, but also those with particular experience in operational planning.”

Khan said his office would be examining possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide – the offences under the court’s jurisdiction – by all parties in the conflict.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine are members of the ICC, and Moscow does not recognise the court, which was established in 1997 by the Rome Statute and opened in The Hague in 2002.

Though not a member of the ICC, Ukraine signed a declaration in 2014 giving the court jurisdiction over alleged grave crimes committed on its territory from 2014 onwards regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators.

International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan poses during an interview with Reuters at the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands
International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan poses during an interview with Reuters at the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands Photograph: Reuters

Updated

After Putin call, Macron says the 'worst is still to come' in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has told Emmanuel Macron that Kyiv’s “refusal to accept Russia’s conditions” means, in the French president’s words, “the worst is still to come” in Ukraine, saying Moscow was aiming to take “full control” by diplomatic or military means, according to the Elysée.

As the number of refugees fleeing the conflict passed a million and Russian forces, backed by heavy shelling, advanced on cities and key ports in the south and east, Russia’s president said in a 90-minute call to his French counterpart he was “prepared to go all the way”, the senior French official said.

Putin – who initiated the call – repeated that Moscow’s objective was the “neutralisation, demilitarisation and de-Nazification” of Ukraine, the official said, adding that Macron had responded that Putin was making a “major mistake” that would cost Russia dearly over the long term.

“There was nothing in what President Putin said to reassure us,” the French official said. Macron had told the Russian president he was “lying to himself” and his country would end up “isolated, weakened and under sanctions for a very long time”.

“‘You are lying to yourself,’” Macron told Putin, the official said. “‘It will cost your country dearly, your country will end up isolated, weakened and under sanctions for a very long time.’”

• This post was amended on 3 March 2022. An earlier version mistakenly attributed the words “the worst is still to come” to Vladimir Putin, rather than Emmanuel Macron.

President Emmanuel Macron.
President Emmanuel Macron. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Ukrainian negotiators arrive for talks with Russian side in Belarus, says Russian news agency

Ukrainian negotiators have arrived by helicopter for talks with the Russian side in Belarus, the Russian state news agency TASS said.

On Wednesday, Belarus’s foreign ministry posted a photo of a conference room, saying it had been set up to host a second round of talks.

Updated

Smoke rises from damaged civil settlements after Russian attacks in Chernihiv, Ukraine.
Smoke rises from damaged civil settlements after Russian attacks in Chernihiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
At least nine people have been killed and four wounded after a Russian airstrike hit two schools and private houses in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region on Thursday, governor Viacheslav Chaus said.
At least nine people have been killed and four wounded after a Russian airstrike hit two schools and private houses in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region on Thursday, governor Viacheslav Chaus said. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

You may have seen a video on social media last week of a Ukrainian man removing a landmine with his bare hands, the cigarette dangling from his mouth reinforcing his apparent nonchalance.

While his bravery was applauded, experts are worried about the message this and other similar videos send, Lizzy Davies writes. A spokesperson for the Halo Trust warns:

We know from past experience that this doesn’t end well and we’re advising people to stay away.

In order to try to raise awareness, the Halo Trust’s colleagues in the cities of Mariupol and Kramatorsk are putting up safety messages in bomb shelters aimed at those civilians who may be tempted to handle munitions and mines themselves.

“These are deadly devices,” read the posters, which picture an array of munitions of different shapes and sizes.

If you see anything like this or similar to this anywhere: DO NOT GO NEAR THEM. Do not pick them up. No matter what you see others do, these are not safe to touch. Call the local emergency authorities.

Updated

At least nine people have been killed and four wounded after a Russian airstrike hit two schools and private houses in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region on Thursday, the governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said.

In an online post, the Chernihiv governor said:

Rescue work is ongoing. According to the state emergency services, there are for now nine people killed and four wounded.

The Kyiv Independent reports that there were several schools, kindergartens and a hospital in the nearby area.

Updated

A cargo ship has sunk off the Ukrainian port of Odesa after an explosion, Reuters is reporting.

Two crew members of the Estonian-owned cargo ship Helt were in a life raft at sea, Igor Ilves, managing director of Tallinn-based manager Vista Shipping Agency, said.

The four other crew members are missing, Ilves said.

Ilves said:

The vessel has finally sunk. Two of the crew are in a raft on the water and four others are missing. I don’t know where they are at the moment.

Updated

Russian forces are attempting to prevent civilians in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol from evacuating, its mayor, Vadym Boichenko, has said.

Local authorities say Russian troops are creating a “humanitarian catastrophe” by actively attacking rail links and bridges, as well as cutting off water and power supply, in a bid to prevent civilians from escaping shelling.

Boichenko said in a video broadcast:

The invaders are systematically and methodically trying to blockade the city of Mariupol.

Constant attacks over the past 24 hours have meant the city has no light, water or heat and local authorities need a ceasefire to restore power, he said.

Mariupol city council claimed the Russians are “hindering food supplies, blocking us like in Leningrad” in a statement.

Russian soldiers are preventing authorities from evacuating the injured, women and children, the statement said.

Boichenko added:

We are being destroyed as a nation. This is the genocide of the Ukrainian people.

These hypocrites came to ‘save’ Russian-speaking citizens of Mariupol and the region. But they arranged the extermination of Ukrainians -- Mariupol residents of Russian, Ukrainian, Greek and other origins.

Updated

EU officials in Brussels have said they believe the Ukrainian figures in relation to the deaths of Russian soldiers are accurate, Daniel Boffey writes.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Thursday morning that 9,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the fighting since the invasion started on 24 February.

On Wednesday, Moscow said that 498 Russian troops had been killed in Ukraine and 1,597 others wounded as it announced its own death toll for the first time.

Updated

The $600m (£450m) 156 metres Dilbar superyacht owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, lies in the harbour in Hamburg after being seized by German authorities.
The $600m (£450m) 156 metres Dilbar superyacht owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, lies in the harbour in Hamburg after being seized by German authorities. Photograph: Fabian Bimmer/Reuters

Amnesty International has documented three attacks that killed at least nine civilians, including children, in the city of Kharkiv on 28 February.

The human rights organisation described the attacks in Ukraine’s second-biggest city, which took place around the same time that talks between Ukraine and Russia took place in Belarus, as “possible war crimes”.

One of these attacks, which took place at 12.30pm local time in North Kharkiv, included Russian-manufactured 300mm Smerch rockets with 9N235 cluster munitions, indicating that the attack was launched by Russia, Amnesty said. At least four civilians were killed by the attack, including a child and three people collecting drinking water.

Another attack that same day also involved a 300mm Smerch rocket on the city’s central Klochkivska Street. The impact of the strike blew the leg off a woman who had gone shopping during a break in the curfew. She died soon afterwards.

A Ukrainian delegation is travelling by helicopter to meet Russian counterparts for a second round of talks, Reuters cites a Ukrainian presidential adviser as saying.

Talks between Ukraine and Russia will kick off in a couple of hours, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an online post.

Earlier, Belarusian state news agency Belta quoted chief Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky as saying the second round of talks would start in Belarus at 1200 GMT.

A Russian negotiator has previously said that a ceasefire was on the agenda, but Ukraine has said Moscow’s demands are unacceptable and Russia must stop bombing Ukrainian cities before any progress can be expected.

Russia’s presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky speaks to the media ahead of expected talks with Ukrainian officials in the Brest region, Belarus
Russia’s presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky speaks to the media ahead of expected talks with Ukrainian officials in the Brest region, Belarus Photograph: BELTA/Reuters

Updated

An aerial view shows a residential building destroyed by shelling in Borodyanka.
An aerial view shows a residential building destroyed by shelling in Borodyanka. Photograph: Maksim Levin/Reuters
A destroyed armoured vehicle is seen on a street in Borodyanka.
A destroyed armoured vehicle is seen on a street in Borodyanka. Photograph: Maksim Levin/Reuters

Russian forces have occupied the regional administration building in Kherson, regional governor Hennadiy Lahuta said, amid conflicting reports about the fate of the strategically important city.

In a Facebook, Lahuta said staff had “not given up our duties”.

The regional operational staff, which I head, continues to work and address pressing issues to help residents of the region.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had captured Kherson on Wednesday but Ukraine has said its forces continue to defend the Black Sea port of about 250,000 people.

Kherson’s mayor, Ihor Kolykhaiev, said in a Facebook post early on Thursday that Russian troops were in control of the city hall and that residents should obey a curfew imposed by what he called the “armed visitors”.

Kolykhaiev said he had made “no promises” to the Russian forces and that he was “only interested in the normal life of our city! I just asked [them] not to shoot people”.

Other restrictions imposed on the city include a curfew from 8pm until 6am with only cars transporting food, medicines and other necessities permitted to enter the city.

CCTV footage shows Russian combat vehicles on the central square of Kherson.
CCTV footage shows Russian combat vehicles on the central square of Kherson. Photograph: EyePress News/Rex/Shutterstock

Hello. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong with you again as we unpack all the latest developments on the unfolding crisis in Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.

Updated

German authorities have reportedly seized the $600m (£450m) superyacht belonging to Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov in a Hamburg shipyard.

Usmanov was on a list of billionaires to face sanctions from the European Union in response to Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine. It came as the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said it had seized a yacht linked to Rosneft boss Igor Sechin in the Mediterranean port of La Ciotat.

The finance ministry said the yacht was owned by an entity of which Sechin had been identified as the main shareholder.

Usmanov’s 156-metre (512-foot) yacht Dilbar, valued at $600m and regarded as the largest motor yacht in the world by gross tonnage, was seized by German authorities on Wednesday, according to a Forbes report based on three sources in the yacht industry.

The yacht has been in the yards of shipbuilding firm Blohm+Voss since late October. A spokesperson for shipbuilding firm Blohm+Voss declined to give a statement when contacted by the Guardian, but said that all projects by shipbuilder Lürssen would be treated “in accordance with the law”.

The Dilbar, a luxury yacht owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, sails in Istanbul’s Bosphorus.
The Dilbar, a luxury yacht owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, sails in Istanbul’s Bosphorus.
 Photograph: Yoruk Isik/Reuters

Updated

Summary

The time is 1pm in Ukraine. Here is a round-up of the day’s main headlines so far:

  • Ukraine’s defence lines were holding against the Russian attack, the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in his latest video, adding there had been no respite in Moscow’s shelling of Ukraine since midnight.
  • Russian shelling and attacks on civilian populations killed 34 civilians in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region in the past 24 hours between 2-3 March, the emergency services said.
  • A second round of talks is reportedly set to take place today. A Russian negotiator said a ceasefire was on the agenda, but Ukraine has said Moscow’s demands are unacceptable and Russia must stop bombing Ukrainian cities before any progress can be expected.
  • More than 1 million people have fled Ukraine since Russian forces invaded the country last week, the head of the United Nations refugee agency has said.
  • The UK’s ministry of defence says the Russian advance on Kyiv has been delayed by “staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown and congestion” and remains more than 30km from the centre of the city.
  • The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said he believes some foreign leaders are preparing for war against Russia and that Moscow would press on with its military operation in Ukraine until “the end”. Lavrov also said Russia had no thoughts of nuclear war,
  • The international criminal court (ICC) confirmed it is opening an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine and begun collecting evidence.
  • The United States has accused Russia of launching a “full war on media freedom and the truth” by blocking independent news outlets and preventing Russians from hearing news of the invasion of Ukraine.
  • The situation in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv is “difficult but under control”, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said. Klitschko said there were no casualties overnight and that nighttime explosions were Ukrainian air defences striking down incoming Russian missiles.
  • Russian troops are in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson after forcing their way into the council building, the mayor said in an update late last night. There are conflicting claims over whether Moscow had made its first major gain by taking over a significant Ukrainian city.
  • Ukraine’s southern port of Mariupol is surrounded by Russian troops, interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said. The council said it was seeking to create a humanitarian corridor for the city, as well as trying to restore infrastructure. “We are being destroyed as a nation. This is genocide of Ukrainian people,” it said.
  • The UN nuclear watchdog has voiced concern after Russian forces claimed to have surrounded Ukraine’s biggest atomic plant, and called for its workers to be left alone to do their jobs.
  • Russian and Belarusian athletes have been banned from the Winter Paralympic Games for their countries’ roles in the war in Ukraine, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has announced.
  • Police in Moscow detained two women and five children holding a poster outside the Ukraine embassy that said “No to war”. Police allegedly threatened to strip the women of custody of the children. In St Petersburg, Yelena Osipova, an activist said to have survived the infamous wartime siege of Leningrad was detained for protesting against the war.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for now. I’ll be back at 2pm London time but my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong will be along shortly to continue bringing you the latest on Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Updated

A missile or bomb hit a Bangladeshi-owned cargo ship at the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Olvia, killing one of its crew members, and efforts were under way to rescue the others from the vessel, the state-run ship’s owner said on Thursday.

“The ship came under attack and one engineer was killed,” Pijush Dutta, executive director of Bangladesh Shipping Corp, told Reuters.

“It was not clear whether it was a bomb or missile or which side launched the attack. The other 28 crewmen are unharmed,” he said without providing further details.

The Bangladesh-flagged Banglar Samriddhi had been stuck at the port of Olvia after Russian invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February and had been hit by a missile, a Bangladesh foreign ministry official said earlier on Thursday.

Updated

Crowds of Ukrainians formed a barrier on Wednesday between Russian forces and a nuclear plant in the city of Enerhodar, blocking their advance.

Footage shared on social media by a Ukrainian official shows people – some holding Ukrainian flags – assembled in front of and around barricades of cars, trucks, tires and sandbags.

Enerhodar is home to Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.

Updated

Ukraine’s southern port of Mariupol is surrounded by Russian troops, interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said on Thursday.

“The occupiers want to turn it into besieged Leningrad,” he said, referring to Nazi Germany’s siege of the then-Soviet city, where about 1.5 million people died during two years of blockade.

Updated

The European Union will take additional steps against Russia if the situation on the ground in Ukraine deteriorates, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Thursday.

The bloc is also preparing in case of Russian retaliation, including diversifying the bloc’s energy supplies, Reuters reported.

“Our aim is to cut the Kremlin’s capacity to wage war on its neighbours,” Von der Leyen said after a meeting with the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis.

“We need to get independent from Russian gas, oil and coal. Our resolve to go forward in this case is stronger than ever,” she added.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. Photograph: Robert Ghement/EPA

Updated

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said he believes some foreign leaders are preparing for war against Russia and that Moscow would press on with its military operation in Ukraine until “the end”.

Lavrov also said Russia had no thoughts of nuclear war, according to a Reuters report.

Offering no evidence to back up his remarks in an interview with state television, a week after Russia invaded Ukraine, he also accused the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an ethnic Jew, of presiding over “a society where Nazism is flourishing”.

He said he had no doubt that a solution to the crisis in Ukraine would be found, and a new round of talks were about to start between Ukrainian and Russian officials.

But he said Russia’s dialogue with the west must be based on mutual respect, accused Nato of seeking to maintain supremacy and said that while Russia had a lot of good will, it could not let anyone undermine its interests.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Photograph: Reuters

Moscow would not let Ukraine keep infrastructure that threatened Russia, he said. Moscow could also not tolerate what he said was a military threat from Ukraine, he said, adding that he was convinced that Russia was right over Ukraine.

“The thought of nuclear is constantly spinning in the heads of western politicians but not in the heads of Russians,” he said. “I assure you that we will not allow any kind of provocation to unbalance us.”

Russia did not feel politically isolated, and the question of how Ukraine lives should be defined by its people, he added.

Updated

The situation in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv is “difficult but under control”, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said on Thursday.

Klitschko said there were no casualties overnight and that nighttime explosions were Ukrainian air defences striking down incoming Russian missiles, Reuters reported.

He said a heating system site damaged by Russian shelling on Wednesday would be fixed during the day.

Updated

Every weekend for most of her youth, while other children were out playing, Natalia Toroshenko attended Ukrainian school, studying the country’s geography, language, its history and national heroes.

“Ukraine, and being Ukrainian, is a deep part of me,” she said. “I wasn’t born there, but it’s my ancestral homeland.”

Toroshenko grew up in Montreal, thousands of kilometres away from the country her father had left to flee famine and conflict. But, she like many other Ukrainian Canadians, has maintained strong connections to the country – and watched horrified as family and friends are trapped in war.

Canada is home to 1.4 million people of Ukrainian descent – the world’s second largest Ukrainian diaspora after Russia. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians farmed the country’s west. The spires of their churches still dot rural landscapes and large cities. Prominent community leaders and politicians are of Ukrainian ancestry, including Canada’s deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland.

Those cultural and political ties are particularly prominent in the Canadian Prairies, where generations of Ukrainians have braided their culture and history into the vast landscape.

Updated

China has denounced a report that it asked Russia to delay invading Ukraine until after the Beijing Winter Olympics as “fake news” and a “very despicable” attempt to divert attention and shift blame over the conflict.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin also repeated China’s accusations that Washington provoked the war by not ruling out Nato membership for Ukraine, the Associated Press reported.

“We hope the culprit of the crisis would reflect on their role in the Ukraine crisis, take up their responsibilities, and take practical actions to ease the situation and solve the problem instead of blaming others,” Wang told reporters at a daily briefing.

“The New York Times report is purely fake news, and such behaviors of diverting attentions and shifting blames are very despicable,” Wang said. The article cited a “western intelligence report” considered credible by officials.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, right, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, talk to each other during their meeting in Beijing on 4 February.
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, right, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, talk to each other during their meeting in Beijing on 4 February. Photograph: Alexei Druzhinin/AP

“The report indicates that senior Chinese officials had some level of direct knowledge about Russia’s war plans or intentions before the invasion started last week,” the Times wrote.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing on 4 February, hours before the Games’ opening ceremony. Following that, the sides issued a joint statement in which they declared “friendship between the two states has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation”.

Updated

ICC launches war crimes investigation over Russian invasion

A war crimes investigation has been launched into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine after an unprecedented number of countries backed the move and Boris Johnson called the military intervention “abhorrent”.

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor for the international criminal court (ICC), said he would begin work “as rapidly as possible” to look for possible crimes against humanity or genocide committed in Ukraine.

The referral for investigation by 39 countries – including the UK – will shave several months off the process because it allows Khan to bypass the need to seek the approval of the court in The Hague.

It came as Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, braced for a siege and the Russian defence ministry claimed it was in “complete control” of Kherson, a southern port city near the Crimean peninsula.

Khan said an “advanced team” of investigators was already travelling to Ukraine.

The British lawyer told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the push for an inquiry by so many countries “allows us to jump-start investigations” and came on top of “evidence of international concern over events on the ground in Ukraine”.

Updated

Germany is planning to deliver a further 2,700 anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine following a volte-face on its previously restrictive stance on exporting lethal weapons, German media reported on Thursday morning.

The shoulder-fired “Strela” surface-to-air rockets, which once belonged to the old arsenal of the National People’s Army of Soviet-controlled East Germany, have been approved for export by Germany’s economic ministry but still await formal approval by the federal security council.

The anti-aircraft missiles follow 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger missiles that the German government announced over the weekend would be dispatched to Ukraine.

In addition, the government of Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has green-lighted the delivery of weapons from Netherlands and Estonia that once belonged to East Germany.

Meanwhile, the German foreign mMinister, Annalena Baerbock, called on Thursday for an urgent inquiry to investigate what she called human rights violations committed by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.

“We must stand up to this attack. Human rights are universal,” Baerbock said in a video message to the UN human rights ccouncil.

Baerbock added that “we urgently need a commission of inquiry on Ukraine to investigate all violations of human rights that have been committed by Russia since its military aggression. We must stand strong on accountability.”

Updated

A new UK visa scheme for the extended family members of British Ukranians comes into force from Friday, the Home Office has announced.

The announcement came as security minister Damian Hinds denied there was a delay to the scheme, announced on Wednesday, which he said would help a “couple of hundred thousand” refugees.

“There is absolutely no suggestion of any kind of delay here - people need help now,” he told Sky News.

Asked how many visa applications had been submitted since last Wednesday, Hinds said: “So far a relatively small number - I can’t give you an exact number - but we expect that to grow rapidly.”

The announcement was welcomed by British Ukrainians who have been trying to arrange visas for extended family fleeing the Russian invasion.

A man comfort his child, as refugees, who fled Ukraine due to the Russian invasion, wait to enter a refugee camp in the Moldovan capital Chisinau on March 3, 2022.
A man comforts his child, as refugees, who fled Ukraine due to the Russian invasion, wait to enter a refugee camp in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau. Photograph: Nikolay Doychinov/AFP/Getty Images

Roman Lytwyniw, 25, who travelled to the Polish town of Przemyśl, near the border with Ukraine, to bring his 80-year-old grandmother back to the UK, said the family had been in limbo for two days, with embassy and Home Official officials unable to help with her visa application.

Lytwyniw, a violinist from London, told the Guardian: “I’m not seeing anything yet from that [announcement]. Yesterday, they told me that I’m going to have to reapply for a visa because we didn’t meet the eligibility requirements.

“I’ve just been to the British embassy here and they’ve told me that the best thing to do would be to travel to either Rzeszow or Warsaw. Because that’s where the nearest visa application centres are.”

A petition calling on the UK government to waive visa requirements for Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion has now been signed by more than 100,000 people.

Updated

EU leaders are expected to discuss and seek to find a common position on Ukraine’s membership application when they gather in Paris next Thursday for an informal summit, officials have said.

Leaders will discuss “timing or the conditions”, with positions currently widely diverging among the 27 capitals.

Georgia and Moldova are also expected to make formal applications “by the end of the week”, EU officials said.

The EU must prepare for the arrival of millions of refugees as they flee war in Ukraine, the bloc’s top home affairs official said on Thursday.

She added that she expected governments to agree a temporary protection scheme in the coming days.

“Already, almost one million are here,” the EU home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, said, with women and children entering the European Union via Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary, which all have land borders with Ukraine.

Reuters reported that the bloc’s interior ministers were set to agree in principle at a meeting on Thursday to automatically grant those fleeing Ukraine a residence permit and access to employment, social welfare and housing for up to three years, they said.

“Putin’s terrible war of aggression has had terrible consequences for people in Ukraine,” the German interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said as she arrived at the Brussels meeting.

“Today it is about all EU members agreeing on a policy to be able to provide help in a non-bureaucratic way.”

The protective measures, once formally approved by EU governments in the coming week, will be granted to Ukrainians and those who had long-term residency or refugee status in Ukraine without them having to go through lengthy asylum procedures.

Updated

'This is genocide of Ukrainian people' - Mariupol city council

Mariupol city council said Russia was constantly and deliberately shelling critical civilian infrastructure in the southern Ukrainian port, leaving it without water, heating or power and preventing bringing supplies or evacuating people.

“They are breaking food supplies, setting us up in a blockade, as in the old Leningrad,” the council said in a statement, reported by the Reuters news agency.

“Deliberately, for seven days, they have been destroying the city’s critical life-support infrastructure. We have no light, water or heat again.”

The council said it was seeking to create a humanitarian corridor for the city, as well as trying to restore infrastructure.

“We are being destroyed as a nation. This is genocide of Ukrainian people,” it said.

Empty streets seen following Russian shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine.
Empty streets seen following Russian shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photograph: Sergei Grits/AP

Updated

Frans Timmermans, the European commission’s first vice-president, has said the UK has followed the EU’s lead but that the government needs to heed British public opinion and go further.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

The UK is now following our lead... I think even parties who accepted funding from oligarchs should understand that they need to change course.

Because, if I don’t misunderstand the mood in the UK, that’s what the British public want.

On Wednesday, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, had questioned why Igor Shuvalov, formerly Vladimir Putin’s deputy prime minister, who now sits on the Russian security council, was not on the UK’s sanctions list but does appear on the EU equivalent.

Russian anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny named Shuvalov as the owner of two luxury apartments in Whitehall Court.

Damian Hinds, a minister in the Home Office, told the Today programme that “it is not a competition” when asked about the apparent failure of the UK government to go as far as its EU allies.

Updated

A call by the Ukrainian embassy in Thailand for foreign volunteers to help fight against the Russian invasion has reportedly prompted dozens of inquiries.

A Ukrainian embassy official told BenarNews that 40 people had turned up in person to ask about travelling to the country, while up to 100 people called to express interest on Wednesday.

The embassy posted an appeal made by Volodymyr Zelenskiy for “friends of peace and democracy” to help Ukraine fight Russia. The statement, posted on its Facebook page, stated: “There is no greater contribution which you can make for the sake of peace.”

The notice has reportedly struck a chord with Thais who participated in the pro-democracy protests that peaked in 2020. Among them is Chanaphong Phongpai, 28, who visited the Ukrainian embassy on Wednesday and spoke to Reuters about his reasons for wanting to fight for Ukraine.

“They (Ukrainians) are also fighting for democracy and is now invaded by a superpower and a tyrant, so I asked myself what I can do for them,” he said.

Thai government spokesperson Ratchada Thanadirek told Reuters that there is no law preventing Thai citizens from joining foreign volunteer forces, but cautioned that people should consider the grave danger they could face on the ground.

The Ukrainian embassy did not immediately respond to a request by the Guardian for comment. It has also set up bank accounts for people to donate in Thai baht.

Chanaphong Phongpai, 28, and friends who want to volunteer to fight in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion of the country, wait for more information outside the Ukrainian embassy in Bangkok, Thailand.
Chanaphong Phongpai, 28, and friends who want to volunteer to fight in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion of the country, wait for more information outside the Ukrainian embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

The Thai prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, has declined to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, echoing the stance of many south-east Asian countries, which have issued mostly restrained statements on the matter.

However, on Wednesday night Thailand was among 141 member states voted for a resolution deploring Russia’s actions and calling for the immediate withdrawal of its force.

Updated

Ukrainian scientists have signed an open letter urging colleagues around the world to cut off collaboration with Russia.

They are calling for an international boycott of scientific events inside Russia and say Russian researchers should be banned from accessing databases. More than 3,000 academics have signed the petition.

Dmytro Chumachenko, an associate professor at the national aerospace university in the city of Kharkiv, now under Russian attack, shared the petition and asked his western colleagues to sign it.

It reads:

The Russian Federation has committed an insidious and completely shameful military attack on our country! In 2022, cruise missiles with cluster munitions and vacuum bombs that are banned in the civilized world are destroying residential areas, kindergartens, and hospitals in the very center of Europe!

As of today, the number of dead civilians counts in hundreds (of which 16 are children), and thousands are wounded. The President of the Russian Federation threatens the world with nuclear weapons, which will obviously start the World War III.

The armed forces and citizens defend Ukraine to the end! The whole world gives a worthy rebuff to the aggressor through the imposition of sanctions. At the same time, we believe that in this situation the progressive world scientific community should have its say.

That is why we need your support right now. In our opinion, in the 21st century and 2022, perhaps the best answer to tanks, multiple rocket launchers, and rockets is closed access to high technologies, innovations, scientific research, and information support.

Updated

Zelenskiy says defence lines holding against Russian onslaught

Ukraine’s defence lines were holding against the Russian attack, the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in his latest video on Thursday, adding there had been no respite in Moscow’s shelling of Ukraine since midnight.

“We have nothing to lose but our own freedom,” Zelenskiy said, adding Ukraine was receiving daily arms supplies from its international allies.

He said it had been two years since Ukraine recorded its first Covid case: “It’s been a week now that another virus attacked,” he said of Russia’s invasion.

As reported by Reuters, Zelenskiy said Russia’s changing tactics and shelling of civilians in cities proved Ukraine was successful in resisting Moscow’s initial plan of claiming a quick victory through a land assault.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy talks during an interview with Reuters in Kyiv.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy talks during an interview with Reuters in Kyiv. Photograph: Ümit Bektaş/Reuters

It comes as the UN human rights office has said 227 civilians had been killed and another 525 injured in Ukraine since Russia’s military invasion began a week ago.

Updated

Residents in the key Black sea port of Odesa were stepping up preparations to defend it against a potential Russian amphibious landing, amid sightings of a convoy of Russian warships, and US warnings that a landing to target Odesa could happen as early as Thursday.

Residents in the city reported on Thursday a marked increase in Russian airstrikes on Wednesday as images emerged of beaches close to the city laid with mines, and other defences being prepared.

Concern of surrounding a potential amphibious landing targeting Odesa mounted on Thursday escalated following images of a Russian naval convoy depicting at least eight ships visible off the coast.

The convoy appears to include a number of 4,080 tonne Ropucha-class large landing ships and supporting vessels.

Odesa is preparing for the Russian offensive.
Odesa is preparing for the Russian offensive. Photograph: Gilles Bader/Le Pictorium Agency/ZUMA/REX/Shutterstock

Two weeks ahead of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, several Ropucha class ships – which can each carry ten main battle tanks – entered the Black Sea under the guise of conducting drills along with a larger Ivan Gren class landing ship which can carry 13 tanks or 40 smaller armoured vehicles.

The loss Odessa, Ukraine’s biggest port city would be an economic catastrophe for Ukraine.

Updated

Ekho Moskvy radio station, one of Russia’s last remaining liberal media outlets, has been dissolved by its board after coming under pressure over its coverage of the war in Ukraine, its editor said on Thursday.

The station, one of the leading news and current affairs channels in Russia, had been taken off the air two days earlier, Reuters reported.

“The Ekho Moskvy board of directors has decided by a majority of votes to liquidate the radio channel and the website of Ekho Moskvy,” the Ekho Moskvy editor-in-chief, Alexei Venediktov, said on the messaging app Telegram.

The move came after the prosecutor general’s office demanded this week that access be restricted to Ekho Moskvy and the TV Rain online news channel over their coverage of the conflict.

The prosecutor said its move was prompted by their websites’ “targeted and systematic posting ... of information calling for extremist activities, violence and deliberately false information about the actions of Russian forces as part of a special operation” in Ukraine.

The Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) radio station’s editor-in-chief, Alexei Venediktov, speaks to the Associated Press at the radio station’s office in Moscow, Russia, on June 10, 2019.
The Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) radio station’s editor-in-chief, Alexei Venediktov, speaks to the Associated Press at the radio station’s office in Moscow, Russia, on June 10, 2019. Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Russia rejects the term invasion, and says its actions are not designed to occupy territory but to destroy Ukraine’s military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists - a pretext rejected by Ukraine and the west as baseless propaganda.

Ekho Moskvy said on Tuesday that the accusations against it were baseless and offensive, and it would fight them in the courts.

Updated

Ukrainian diplomats formerly based in Moscow arrived in Latvia on Wednesday evening, Latvia’s foreign minister said.

“Latvia welcomes Ukrainian diplomats who left Moscow and crossed Latvian-Russian border last night,” minister Edgars Rinkēvičs tweeted on Thursday.

Latvia said on Saturday it would give refuge to the diplomats after receiving their plea for help, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, Hungary has evacuated 32 people from its embassy in Kyiv, including some Hungarian embassy staff, two journalists, 10 South African and 10 Nigerian nationals, the Hungarian foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said on Thursday.

He said the evacuated embassy staff and foreign nationals crossed over into Hungary overnight.

Updated

The Australian government has asked Facebook, Twitter, Google and other digital platforms to block content generated by Russian state media to curb “disinformation in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine”.

Australia’s communications minister, Paul Fletcher, wrote on Thursday to Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, and a range of other digital platforms, asking them to take action “as a priority to suspend the dissemination on your platform[s] in Australia of content generated by Russian state media organisations”.

The other recipients are Apple, TikTok, Twitter, Snap Inc, Reddit, Google and Microsoft.

Fletcher cited “a significant volume of such content promoting violence, extremism and disinformation in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine”.

Australia is not the first government to make the request, with the European Union’s own ban on Russian state media prompting a number of platforms to crack down on Kremlin-backed news outlets RT and Sputnik.

Russian shelling and attacks on civilian populations killed 34 civilians in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region in the past 24 hours between 2-3 March, the emergency services said on Thursday.

Separately, Reuters reported that the governor of the Ukraine-controlled eastern Donetsk region said the port city of Mariupol, one of the first targets of the Russian invasion, was without electricity or water supplies.

Damages in a building entrance after shelling by Russian forces of Constitution Square in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city.
Damages in a building entrance after shelling by Russian forces of Constitution Square in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Updated

The Lithuanian prosecutor general’s office said on Thursday it had begun investigating suspected crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.

“The investigation was launched with regards to the military aggression in Ukraine,” it said in a statement reported by the Reuters news agency.

The probe will include “military attacks on civilians, doctors, destruction of homes, hospitals, educational institutions and other civilian facilities, which lead to deaths of adults and children,” it said.

Here is a round-up of some of the images from the fallout of Putin’s war in Ukraine today.

A woman holds a small girl at a border crossing, up as refugees flee a Russian invasion, in Medyka, Poland.
A woman holds a small girl at a border crossing, up as refugees flee a Russian invasion, in Medyka, Poland. Photograph: Markus Schreiber/AP
Women and children, fleeing from Ukraine, sleep at a makeshift shelter in the train station in Przemysl, Poland, Thursday, March 3, 2022.
Women and children, fleeing from Ukraine, sleep at a makeshift shelter in the train station in Przemysl, Poland, Thursday, March 3, 2022. Photograph: Markus Schreiber/AP
Indian national students evacuated from crisis-hit Ukraine by Indian Air Force Plane arrive at Hindon Air Force Station in Ghaziabad, amid the ongoing Russian invasion.
Indian national students evacuated from crisis-hit Ukraine by Indian Air Force Plane arrive
at Hindon Air Force Station in Ghaziabad, amid the ongoing Russian invasion. Photograph: Karma Sonam Bhutia/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
Workers examine the damage at the Kyiv central railway station, which was reportedly hit by a night explosion.
Workers examine the damage at the Kyiv central railway station, which was reportedly hit by a night explosion. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images
A woman uses her mobile phone after boarding a bus which will take refugees to Germany, at the train station in Przemysl, Poland.
A woman uses her mobile phone after boarding a bus which will take refugees to Germany, at the train station in Przemysl, Poland. Photograph: Markus Schreiber/AP

Updated

The Russian military is a “ruthless invading force” which poses a danger immediately to Ukraine, but also to “wider Europe and the world”.

Damian Hinds, the UK’s security minister, told Sky News:

How concerned am I? We are all desperately concerned.

This is a ruthless invading force. When it comes to tactics and military strategy, I’m not going to second guess Vladimir Putin and what he might be thinking, what might be in his head.

But we do know that this is a ruthless force, an extremely dangerous (force) obviously imminently right now for Ukraine, but actually dangerous for wider Europe and the world.

The bravery, the tenacity of Ukraine, my God, we have all been taken aback and it is so important we do everything we can to support them in what they are doing and make sure - and this is where the sanctions, we’ve got the Economic Crime Bill, transparency and enforcement coming through on Monday in Parliament.

It is why all these things are so important, why we absolutely need to make the regime hurt.

Russian and Belarusian athletes have been banned from the Winter Paralympic Games for their countries’ roles in the war in Ukraine, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has announced.

The U-turn comes less than 24 hours after the IPC said it would allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete when the Games open on Friday, but only as neutral athletes with colours, flags and other national symbols removed.

The IPC received immediate criticism for its initial decision, the Associated Press reported. It soon became evident that many athletes would refuse to compete against Russians or Belarusians.

IPC President Andrew Parsons, in announcing the initial measures Wednesday in a Beijing news conference, sympathised openly with the Ukrainian people but said his actions were constrained by his organisation’s rules and the fear of legal action.

Parsons said almost the opposite in announcing his reversal, noting his constituents had pushed back.

“In the last 12 hours, an overwhelming number of members have been in touch with us,” Parsons said in a statement. “They have told us that if we do not reconsider our decision, it is now likely to have grave consequences.”

Parsons added:

What is clear is that the rapidly escalating situation has now put us in a unique and impossible position so close to the start of the Games.

International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons speaks during a IPC press conference.
International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons speaks during a IPC press conference. Photograph: Wang He/Getty Images

Germany is considering supplying 2,700 anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine as it seeks to defend itself against an invasion by Russia, a government source said on Thursday.

German news agency DPA reported earlier that the economy ministry had approved supplying the Soviet-made Strela missiles, part of the inventories of the former German Democratic Republic’s army.

A source told Reuters that the Federal Security Council had yet to approve the move. “The missiles are ready to be transported,” the source said.

That would come on top of 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles that Germany said on Saturday it would supply to Ukraine, in a shift of policy after Russia invaded its neighbour.

Hello. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news on Putin’s war in Ukraine over the next few hours.

Summary

It is 9.30am in Ukraine on the eighth day of Putin’s war. Here is where the crisis currently stands:

  • A second round of talks is reportedly set to take place today. A Russian negotiator said a ceasefire was on the agenda, but Ukraine has said Moscow’s demands are unacceptable and Russia must stop bombing Ukrainian cities before any progress can be expected.
  • More than one million people have fled Ukraine since Russian forces invaded the country last week, the head of the United Nations refugee agency has said.
  • The UK’s ministry of defence says the Russian advance on Kyiv has been delayed by “staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown and congestion” and remains more than 30km from the centre of the city.
  • The international criminal court (ICC) confirmed it is opening an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine and begun collecting evidence.
  • The United States has accused Russia of launching a “full war on media freedom and the truth” by blocking independent news outlets and preventing Russians from hearing news of the invasion of Ukraine.
  • Russia’s central bank has imposed a 30% commission on foreign currency purchases by individuals on currency exchanges, brokers told Reuters, citing a letter from the regulator.
  • Russian troops are in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson after forcing their way into the council building, the mayor said in an update late last night. There are conflicting claims over whether Moscow had made its first major gain by taking over a significant Ukrainian city.
  • The UN nuclear watchdog has voiced concern after Russian forces claimed to have surrounded Ukraine’s biggest atomic plant, and called for its workers to be left alone to do their jobs.
  • Explosions were reported in Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday following Russian airstrikes.
  • Police in Moscow detained two women and five children holding a poster outside the Ukraine embassy that said “No to war”. Police allegedly threatened to strip the women of custody of the children. In St Petersburg, Yelena Osipova, an activist said to have survived the infamous wartime siege of Leningrad was detained for protesting against the war.
  • More than 350 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and more than 2,000 injured, according to Ukraine’s emergency service. Hundreds of structures including transport facilities, hospitals, kindergartens and homes have been destroyed, it said.
  • Ukraine claimed nearly 7,000 Russian troops had been killed in the first six days of Moscow’s invasion. Russia’s defence ministry said 498 Russian soldiers had died in Ukraine since the start of its campaign, its first statement on casualties.

Updated

Russian advance on Kyiv has made little progress, UK intelligence report

The UK’s ministry of defence says the Russian advance on Kyiv has been delayed by “staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown and congestion” and remains more than 30km from the centre of the city.

The latest intelligence report reads:

The main body of the large Russian column advancing on Kyiv remains over 30km from the centre of the city having been delayed by staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown and congestion. The column has made little discernible progress in over three days.

Despite heavy Russian shelling, the cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol remain in Ukrainian hands. Some Russian forces have entered the city of Kherson but the military situation remains unclear.

The report added that the Russian defence ministry “has been forced to admit” that 498 Russian soldiers have already been killed and 1,597 wounded in Putin’s war, adding that the actual number of those killed and wounded “will almost certainly be considerably higher” and will continue to rise.

Updated

Quick snap here from Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov.

Suited up in khaki attire, the minister gave a tribute to the Ukrainian people.

Hungary will not veto European Union sanctions against Russia and the unity of the 27-member bloc is “paramount” amid the war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.

In an interview with news website mandiner.hu, Orban said:

As far as sanctions are concerned, we will not veto, we will not prevent the EU from imposing sanctions on Russia. EU unity is now paramount.”

Orban added that Hungary’s ties with Russia had been “balanced and fair” until the very recent past, but the war has created a new situation.

He added, however, that there was no reason to cut energy ties with Moscow.

If we abolished energy cooperation with the Russians, the overhead costs of all Hungarian families would triple in a single month. I therefore do not support this move, let Hungarian families not pay the price of the war.”

Nearly 15,000 Russian tourists are stuck in the Dominican Republic due to travel restrictions imposed after Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour, the government in Santo Domingo said Wednesday, according to a report from Agence France-Presse.

The Caribbean country said it had reached a deal with hotel chains to “guarantee” the tourists’ accommodation “until such time as a solution is found.”

The 14,800 Russian tourists are mainly in the eastern province of La Altagracia, home to visitor hotspot Punta Cana. Some 1,900 Ukrainian visitors are also in the country and will remain in their hotels until a repatriation plan is in place.

Ukraine’s honorary consul to the Dominican Republic, Ilona Oleksandrivna, has claimed there were some 3,000 of her countrymen and women in the country, of whom 1,200 had been kicked out of their hotels. AFP said they found no stranded foreigners in the main tourist areas.

While Russian forces threaten new attacks, the basement of a Kyiv hospital has transformed into a maternity ward, where expecting and new mothers bring new life into a world violently upended by a Russian military invasion.

Alina Shinkar is 32 weeks pregnant with her first child. She was admitted to one of Kyiv’s maternity hospitals two weeks ago because of pregnancy complications. “I woke up on the 24th of February, at 5 o’clock in the morning from the hit, that I heard. The explosion. And then I heard women started to cry and scream. The war started.’”

Watch Alina’s story in the video below.

Updated

Pro-Russian forces may launch targeted strikes on the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol unless Ukrainian forces there surrender, the Interfax news agency quoted Donetsk separatist commander Eduard Basurin as saying on Thursday.

Russia and separatists say they have encircled the city of 430,000 located on the Azov Sea coast.

However, an operational update published by the Ukrainian military this morning said the city remains in Ukrainian hands.

The International Criminal Court earlier confirmed that it is opening an investigation into the situation in Ukraine.

In a statement published to the ICC website, prosecutor, Karim AA Khan QC writes:

On 28 February, I announced my decision to seek authorisation to open an investigation into the Situation in Ukraine, on the basis of my Office’s earlier conclusions arising from its preliminary examination, and encompassing any new alleged crimes falling within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “the Court”).

In the same statement, I indicated that active investigations by my Office would be significantly expedited if a State Party to the Rome Statute (the “Statute”) were to refer the situation to my Office, as provided in article 14 of the Statute...

I have notified the ICC Presidency a few moments ago of my decision to immediately proceed with active investigations in the Situation. Our work in the collection of evidence has now commenced.

In total, 39 ICC states have referred atrocities for investigation.

German authorities reportedly seized the $600m superyacht belonging to Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov in a Hamburg shipyard on Wednesday.

Usmanov was on a list of billionaires to face sanctions from the European Union in response to Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine.

A Forbes report based on three sources in the yacht industry said his 156-metre (512-foot) yacht Dilbar, valued at $600m and regarded as the largest motor yacht in the world by gross tonnage, was seized by German authorities on Wednesday.

If you missed our earlier report you can read the full story below.

Super yacht Dilbar, owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov was reported seized by German authorities.
Super yacht Dilbar, owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov was reported seized by German authorities. Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov during an awarding ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov during an awarding ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow. Photograph: SPUTNIK/Reuters

The United States has accused Russia of launching a “full war on media freedom and the truth” by blocking independent news outlets and preventing Russians from hearing news of the invasion of Ukraine.

The US State Department said in a statement as reported by Reuters:

Russia’s government is also throttling Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram platforms that tens of millions of Russia’s citizens rely on to access independent information and opinions.”

Russians also used social media to connect to each other and the outside world, it added.

The agency called on Putin and the Russian government to immediately “cease this bloodshed” and withdraw troops from Ukraine.

A compilation of video footage taken by those currently in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson show Russian troops patrolling the city streets.

Kherson’s mayor, Igor Kolykhaiev, confirmed Russian forces had landed in the city in a Facebook post written about 10pm on Wednesday.

“There were armed visitors in the city council today. My team and I are peaceful people, we had no weapons or aggression on our side.”

You can watch the footage below.

Updated

Soaring oil price threatens 'stagflationary shock' – analyst

The soaring cost of oil and other key commodities in the wake of the invasion threatens to unleash another bout of damaging inflation and supply shortages on the global economy.

The price of benchmark Brent crude oil added another 3.4% in early trade on Thursday to climb to $116.80. The cost of other crucial commodities such as aluminum (2.62%), iron ore (7.75%), copper (1.6%) and wheat (7%) were also on an upward curve, thanks to tighter supplies but also bulk buying by the Chinese government, according to analysts.

Tina Teng, markets analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, said commodity prices would keep rising.

The Russia-Ukraine war has been pumping up global commodity prices, not only because of the supply disruption, but also resulting from hedging activities. Markets have priced in for a much tighter oil supply, with oil tankers and shippers in a standoff for Russia’s exports. China has also ordered the state-owned buyers to store major commodities, including oil, gas, iron ore and agriculture products. Crude oil futures are heading toward $US120 a barrel.

There was also concern about stagflation, where growth falls and prices rise. Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at fund manager AMP in Sydney, said:

Russia supplies around 30% of Europe’s gas and oil imports and accounts for around 11% of world oil production. In short, investors are worried about a stagflationary shock.

Wrapping it all up, our economics editor looks at the threat of a global recession.

The Ukrainian military claims Russian troops have been “unsuccessful in almost all directions in which they were advancing”, according to an operational update published this morning.

The force added that shelling of residential neighbourhoods in major cities continued overnight while Russian troops pushed forward towards the northern outskirts of Kyiv and Mariupol.

According to the Ukrainian military, some Russian troops are requiring the urgent replacement of equipment and personnel, however the Guardian has been unable to confirm these reports.

The Russian Federal Security Service leaked information that alerted Ukraine to an assassination plot against president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to the cyber-hacking collective Anonymous.

In a recently published tweet, the group said: Russian FSB leaked information alerted Ukraine to assassination plot against President @ZelenskyyUa. Now, we can expect an internal power struggle within the Kremlin to overthrow the Putin regime. In the meantime, let’s continue with the attacks,” the tweet read.

Anonymous also claimed responsibility for taking down the Russian Space Agency website for a second time.

Russia’s central bank has imposed a 30% commission on foreign currency purchases by individuals on currency exchanges, brokers have told Reuters, citing a letter from the regulator.

There was no comment from the central bank but it follows a turbulent few days for financial markets in Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

The rouble has plunged in value, forcing the central bank to double its key interest rate to 20% in order to protect the currency from speculation.

The levy on forex also appears to be a move to prevent trade in the rouble and ringfence the Russian financial system.

Russian controls imposed in Kherson, says mayor

Russian troops are in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson after forcing their way into the council building, the mayor said in an update late last night.

According to the New York Times, the city northwest of the Crimean peninsula, has been captured by Russians. The city’s mayor, and US intelligence have contested that it has fully been overtaken.

In a Facebook post written about 10pm on Wednesday, Kherson’s mayor, Igor Kolykhaiev, said:

There were armed visitors in the city council today.

My team and I are peaceful people, we had no weapons or aggression on our side.

We don’t have Ukrainian Armed Forces in the city, only civilians and people who want to LIVE here!

The developments follow a day of conflicting claims over whether Moscow had made its first major gain by taking over a significant Ukrainian city.

CCTV footage shows Russian combat vehicles on the central square of Kherson in the southern Ukraine on 2 March.
CCTV footage shows Russian combat vehicles on the central square of Kherson in the southern Ukraine on 2 March. Photograph: EyePress News/REX/Shutterstock

Kolykhaiev indicated he negotiated with the invading troops.

I made no promises to them. I just have nothing to promise. I am only interested in the normal life of our city! I just asked not to shoot people.

Other restrictions imposed on the city include aa curfew from 8pm until 6am with cars transporting food, medicines and other necessities permitted to enter the city.

Public transport is set to restart soon and pedestrians are being told to “walk one by one, maximum two’.

“The military will not be provoked. Stop at the first demand. They do not conflict,” Kolykhaiev said.

We have shown that we are working to secure the city and are trying to eliminate the consequences of the invasion.

So far this is how it is. Ukrainian flag above us. And to keep it the same, these requirements must be met.”

Earlier, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said: “We’re not in a position to call it either way. It appears to us that the Ukrainians are certainly fighting over that town.”

CCTV footage shows troops patrolling the streets of Kherson.
CCTV footage shows troops patrolling the streets of Kherson. Photograph: Reuters

1 million people have fled Ukraine, UN refugee agency says

More than one million people have fled Ukraine since Russian forces invaded the country last week, the head of the United Nations refugee agency has said.

Filippo Grandi said in a post over Twitter on Thursday:

In just seven days we have witnessed the exodus of one million refugees from Ukraine to neighbouring countries.

For many millions more, inside Ukraine, it’s time for guns to fall silent, so that life-saving humanitarian assistance can be provided.”

It is the swiftest refugee exodus this century, the United Nations added.

Updated

Russian forces surround Ukraine’s biggest nuclear plant, sparking UN concerns

The UN nuclear watchdog has voiced concern after Russian forces claimed to have surrounded Ukraine’s biggest atomic plant, and called for its workers to be left alone to do their jobs.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the Russian government had informed the agency that its troops had taken control of the area around the Zaporizhzhia plant in south-eastern Ukraine, the second biggest in Europe, housing six of the country’s 15 reactors.

In their letter to the IAEA, Russian officials insisted that Ukrainian staff at the plant were continuing to “work on providing nuclear safety and monitoring radiation in normal mode of operation”.

Read the full story below.

Heartbreaking images have emerged of Ukrainians fleeing their country en route to Poland.

More than one million people have fled Ukraine since Russian forces invaded the country last week, the head of the United Nations refugee agency has said.

Many have made the journey by bus.

A little boy seen peering through the window of a bus en route to Poland.
A little boy seen peering through the window of a bus en route to Poland. Photograph: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
A girl fleeing from Ukraine arrives by bus to a parking lot in Przemysl, Poland on 2 March.
A girl fleeing from Ukraine arrives by bus to a parking lot in Przemysl, Poland on 2 March. Photograph: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
A man fleeing from Ukraine with a dog and a boy arrive by bus to Poland.
A man fleeing from Ukraine with a dog and a boy arrive by bus to Poland. Photograph: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
A woman fleeing from Ukraine arrives by bus to a parking lot in Przemysl, Poland on 2 March.
A woman fleeing from Ukraine arrives by bus to a parking lot in Przemysl, Poland on 2 March. Photograph: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

Welcome

Hello, I’m Samantha Lock and welcome to our rolling coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war.

It is 7am in Ukraine. Here’s where we stand right now:

  • More than one million people have fled Ukraine since Russian forces invaded the country last week, the head of the United Nations refugee agency said.
  • Russian troops moved in to the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson after forcing their way into the council building, the mayor said in an update late Wednesday.
  • Explosions were reported in Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday following Russian airstrikes. Two blasts reportedly went off in the city centre, followed by two more near a metro station, as Russia steps up its offensive and moves forces closer towards the capital in an apparent attempt to encircle it.
  • The international criminal court (ICC) confirmed it is opening an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine and begun collecting evidence. The ICC process was sped up after 38 countries formally referred reports of atrocities to it, the largest referral the court has ever received.
  • The strategically important Sea of Azov port city of Mariupol is reportedly surrounded by Russian troops. “We cannot even take the wounded from the streets, from apartments, since the shelling does not stop,” its mayor said.
  • Police in Moscow detained two women and five children holding a poster outside the Ukraine embassy that said “No to war”. Police allegedly threatened to strip the women of custody of the children. In St Petersburg, Yelena Osipova, an activist said to have survived the infamous wartime siege of Leningrad was detained for protesting against the war.
  • Russian paratroopers landed in Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, following several days of bombardment that has killed or wounded dozens of civilians. Four more people died on Wednesday, local authorities said, adding the city was still under their control.
  • More than 350 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and more than 2,000 injured, according to Ukraine’s emergency service. Hundreds of structures including transport facilities, hospitals, kindergartens and homes have been destroyed, it said.
  • Ukraine claimed nearly 7,000 Russian troops had been killed in the first six days of Moscow’s invasion. Russia’s defence ministry said 498 Russian soldiers had died in Ukraine since the start of its campaign, its first statement on casualties.
  • The UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly to deplore Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for the immediate withdrawal of its forces. On Wednesday, 141 of the 193 member states voted for the resolution, 35 abstained and five – Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea – voted against.
  • A second round of talks is reportedly to get under way on Thursday. A Russian negotiator said a ceasefire was on the agenda, but Ukraine has said Moscow’s demands are unacceptable and Russia must stop bombing Ukrainian cities before any progress can be expected.
  • Police in Poland warned that fake reports of violent crimes being committed by people fleeing Ukraine are circulating on social media after Polish nationalists attacked and abused groups of African, south Asian and Middle Eastern people who had crossed the border.

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

Updated

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