Thank you for joining today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. We have moved our live feed to a new blog which you can view below.

Russia’s war on Ukraine has entered its third week. Hundreds have been reported to be dead or wounded while more than two million Ukrainian refugees have so far fled their homeland, according to UN estimates.

It is 6.45am in Ukraine and here is where the crisis currently stands:

• A children’s hospital and maternity ward in Mariupol was destroyed by a Russian airstrike on Wednesday afternoon, Ukrainian officials said.
  
• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the attack “the ultimate evidence of genocide” adding that children are buried under rubble while the regional governor said 17 people have been wounded. “A children’s hospital, a maternity ward. How did they threaten the Russian Federation?” Zelenskiy added. The Guardian was unable to fully verify Ukrainian officials’ accounts, but video published by the Associated Press showed multiple injured people at the site of the hospital attack.
• Western officials warned of their “serious concern” that Vladimir Putin could use chemical weapons on Kyiv. In an assessment, they said an “utterly horrific” attack on the Ukrainian capital could be unleashed as Russian forces attempt to overcome the logistical issues that have apparently plagued troops headed towards Kyiv.
• The US House of Representatives approved $13.6 billion in US aid to Ukraine and its European allies.
  
• Britain is planning to supply Starstreak anti-aircraft weapons and “a small consignment” of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine as Russian forces close in on Kyiv, the British defence secretary said.
• Canada will also provide Ukraine with an additional $50m in lethal and non-lethal military aid.
• The United States has seen indications that Russia is dropping “dumb bombs” – unguided munitions with no precise target – on Ukraine, a senior US defence official said.
• Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has landed in Turkey for the face-to-face talks on Thursday with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, the highest-level meeting between the two countries since Russia invaded. Kuleba warned in a Facebook video his expectations were “limited”.
• Ukraine has accused Russian forces of “holding 400,000 people hostage” in Mariupol. The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the city, where conditions are described as “apocalyptic”, was still being shelled by Russian troops despite an agreement to establish a safe evacuation corridor for civilians.
• Overnight strikes in the north-eastern city of Okhtyrka, Sumy region, reportedly killed a 13-year-old boy and two women, according to regional officials.
  
• Ukrainian authorities have said the power supply has been cut to the defunct Chernobyl power plant. The UN’s atomic watchdog said the spent nuclear fuel stored there had cooled down sufficiently for it not to be an imminent concern. Still, the news is raising concerns that a lack of external power to the site could compromise nuclear safety.
• More than 40,000 civilians were evacuated from across Ukraine on Wednesday but authorities struggled to get people away from conflict zones around the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, a Ukrainian negotiator said. Ukrainian authorities said earlier that the corridors should allow residents of the heavily bombarded cities of Mariupol, Enerhodar, Sumy, Izyum and Volnovakha, as well as towns around Kyiv including Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel, to leave, calling on Russian forces to respect an “official public commitment” to cease fire.
• The International Monetary Fund has approved $1.4 billion in emergency financing for Ukraine to help meet urgent spending needs and mitigate the economic impact of Russia’s military invasion.
• Mining giant Rio Tinto has become the latest corporation to cut ties with Moscow saying it was ending all commercial relations with Russian businesses.

Another video shared by Ukrainian media outlet NEXTA TV, purports to show a 61-year-old Scottish man bearing arms in Kyiv in the fight against the Russian invasion.

“My name is Rob. I am a 61-year-old grandfather from Scotland,” the man says.

“I travelled from Edinburgh to Kyiv to help in the fight against the Russians. I will do anything in my power to stop Russia from capturing Kyiv.”

The terrifying moment two Ukrainian explosive disposal specialists defuse a Russian bomb with just their hands a bottle of water has gone viral after the footage was shared by Ukrainian media outlet NEXTA TV.

The 31-second clip, which has since been viewed more than 1.4m times, was captioned “bomb defusing process” and shows two men kneeling beside the weapon while carefully unscrewing the seal using just a small water bottle and gloves.

Charles Lister, senior fellow and the director of the Syria and countering terrorism and extremism programs at the Middle East Institute, shared the video, describing the moment as an act of “mind boggling bravery”.

“This Russia-dropped bomb would flatten a building — and yet these Ukraine EODs defuse it with 2 hands and a bottle of water, while shells audibly land nearby,” Lister said. “Mind boggling bravery.”

Overnight strikes in the north-eastern city of Okhtyrka, Sumy region, reportedly killed a 13-year-old boy and two women, according to regional officials.

“Enemy aviation hit residential houses. 5 people were rescued from the falls, 2 of them children. Also partially destroyed police department,” Sumy regional state administration head Dmytro Zhyvytsky said, citing a report from the Sumy regional military administration.

Zhyvytsky said that just after midnight local time on Thursday residential areas and a gas pipeline were hit.

“The enemy artillery fired at the former Electrobutprilad plant. The result of the shelling killed three villagers, including a minor boy,” he said.

“Great Pisarívka suffered a night bombing. Power lines are torn, lying on the ground. A 13-year-old boy and 2 women were killed as a result of an artillery shelling.”

Zhyvytsky also says three humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians are expected to open from 9am local time.

On Wednesday, about 5,000 people were evacuated from Sumy, the regional capital that has been under heavy Russian bombardment for days.

Carlsberg, the world’s third-largest brewer, has said it will stop selling its flagship beer brand, cease all advertising in Russia and will donate profits from its Russia business where the company has already halted investments.

The Carlsberg Group’s Baltika Breweries, headquartered in St Petersburg, will be run as a separate business and continue operating its eight breweries in Russia, where it has around 8,400 employees.

“Baltika Breweries will be run as a separate business, with the purpose of sustaining our employees and their families,” Carlsberg said, as reported by Bloomberg.

Heineken NV also stopped the production and sale of its own brand beer in Russia.

“Heineken will no longer accept any net financial benefit derived from our Russian operations,” the company said in a statement in Wednesday.

Asian shares surged on Thursday, tracking Wall Street’s gains as planned diplomatic talks between Russia and Ukraine buoyed sentiment, although analysts warned the rally could be susceptible to a sharp reversal as risks remain, Reuters reports.

Oil prices also regained some footing, having fallen more than 12% on the previous session as United Arab Emirates pledged to support hiking oil output to ease mayhem in energy markets.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 1.6% in early trade. Japan’s Nikkei surged 3.4% while Australian shares were up 1%.
Chinese blue chips rose 1.96% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rallied 1.8%.

US crude ticked up 1.37% to $110.19 a barrel, while Brent crude rose 2% to $113.2 per barrel.

European Union leaders will phase out buying Russian oil, gas and coal, a draft declaration showed on Thursday, as the bloc seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian sources of energy. The United States banned oil and gas imports from Russia on Tuesday, while Britain said it would phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year.

Data due later on Thursday is expected to show US consumer inflation racing at a 7.9% annualised clip, according to a Reuters poll.

“From a central bank perspective, the war in Ukraine is likely to lead to further upward pressure on consumer price inflation that could result in a supply side shock,” said David Chao, Hong Kong-based global market strategist at Invesco.
“US equities could be in a holding pattern with higher levels of volatility as investors assess the impact of the Ukraine conflict on inflation and possible Fed actions.”

US stocks surged overnight, led by financial and tech shares. The Nasdaq Composite added 3.59% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2%.

The British newspapers have once again led with Zelenskiy’s war effort against Russia’s invasion.

The United States is rapidly processing requests from Americans to export firearms and ammunition to Ukraine, the US Commerce Department said on Wednesday.

Americans are collecting weapons for Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on his citizens to defend the country from invading Russian forces and promised to arm them.

The Commerce Department said it had imposed export controls on Russia to “degrade its ability to sustain military aggression” and Americans should check agency regulations to see if a license was needed to ship specific firearms to Ukraine.

“The department has been processing requests rapidly for the export of firearms and ammunition to Ukraine under its existing processes and authorities,” a department spokesperson said, Reuters reports.

Americans are donating thousands of sets of body armour and millions of rounds of ammunition in response to Ukraine’s pleas for military support.

Equipment donors and US volunteers for Ukraine’s armed forces must navigate US export license requirements for items like military-grade bullet proof vests.

Controls at airports on volunteers carrying such body-armour appear to have eased, a US volunteer in Poland said.

“From the latest wave of people carrying plates this week, not a single person has been stopped,” said the volunteer, who asked not to be named, referring to the ceramic plates that make vests bullet-proof.

Two Americans shipping military supplies to Ukraine, who asked to remain anonymous, said they had seen rapid export license approvals.

At least 35,000 civilians were evacuated from besieged Ukrainian cities on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, adding that three humanitarian corridors had allowed residents to leave the cities of Sumy, Enerhodar and areas around Kyiv.

Evacuations will hopefully continue on Thursday with three more routes set to open out of the cities of Mariupol, Volnovakha in the southeast and Izium in eastern Ukraine.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR has estimated the total number of refugees at 2.1 to 2.2 million.

Mining giant Rio Tinto has become the latest corporation to cut ties with Moscow saying it was ending all commercial relations with Russian businesses.

“Rio Tinto is in the process of terminating all commercial relationships it has with any Russian business,” a spokesman said in a message sent to Reuters.

The announcement from the Anglo-Australian firm comes after a top executive said the company was looking for alternative fuel sources for its Mongolian copper operations at Oyu Tolgoi but did not believe it can stop buying from Russia altogether.

The company did not immediately respond to questions on whether it would continue to buy Russian fuel and other products through non-Russian third parties.

Leading US companies like McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Starbucks stopped trading with Russia this week.

Canada will provide Ukraine with an additional $50m in lethal and non-lethal military aid, including Canadian-made cameras used in military drones and other specialised equipment, according to defence minister Anita Anand.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau earlier announced another shipment of highly-specialised military equipment to Ukraine.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, in a phone call on Wednesday, discussed additional security and humanitarian support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, the state department said in a statement.

Blinken and Kuleba also discussed Russia’s “unconscionable attacks harming population centres,” the statement said.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin also spoke with Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov about the continued provision of defensive security assistance to Ukraines military, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Britain may escalate its military aid to Ukraine by sending state-of-the-art anti-aircraft missile systems.

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said that “in response to a Ukrainian request” the government was exploring the donation of Starstreak high-velocity man-portable anti-air missiles, according to PA Media.

Starstreak, the portable missile which works by a laser being pointed at a target to shoot down helicopters and fighter jets, would help Ukraine to “better defend their skies”, Wallace said.

The weapons were in response to a change in Russian tactics, “so the Ukrainians need to, too”, the defence secretary said.

He also confirmed that 3,615 Nlaw anti-tank weapons had been supplied - up from the previously-announced figure of 2,000 - and “small consignments” of the Javelin system would also be sent to Ukraine, The Times reports.

In answer to questions from MPs about how long the supply decision would take, Wallace said: “We are in principle going to do it.” He acknowledged that Ukrainian soldiers would need to be trained to use the missiles. “How we are doing it [training] is sensitive,” he said.

The government has already supplied Ukraine with 3,615 anti-tank weapons and soon would be sending a “small consignment” of Javelin anti-tank missiles, Wallace told MPs.

Index provider Morningstar will remove Russia securities from its fixed income indexes beginning 31 March and immediately move the country from emerging markets to unclassified, Reuters reports.

Earlier this week, JPMorgan - which runs the most widely used emerging market bond indexes - also said Russia will be excluded from all its fixed income indexes on 31 March.

Index providers FTSE Russell and MSCI said last week they were taking similar steps as deepening sanctions and public pressure isolate Russia’s economy from western investment and trading partners.

Morningstar said its indexes will remove cash and accrued interest from all Russian issuers regardless of payment status, from 9 March for all indexes except the Morningstar Infrastructure Bond Indexes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believes Putin will eventually cease hostilities and enter negotiations after seeing invading Russian forces encounter fierce resistance from Ukrainians, according to an interview with VICE News.

“I think he will. I think he sees that we are strong,” Zelenskiy told the publication. “He will. We need some time.”

Zelenskiy suggested that he believes Putin will be forced to recalculate and end the conflict through negotiations, saying: “How to stop this war? Only dialogue.”

The Ukrainian president said his message to Putin right now would be: “Stop the war. Begin to speak. That’s it.”

“Can you trust Putin?” Zelenskiy was asked. “Trust [Putin]? Oh, no. I trust only my family,” he replied.

In case you missed this earlier, US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Vladimir Putin will fail in his effort to subjugate Ukraine, and will instead lead Russia into a ‘strategic defeat’ that is already unfolding. The secretary of state said:

I’m absolutely convinced that Putin will fail, and Russia will suffer a strategic defeat no matter what short-term tactical gains it may make in Ukraine.

You can win a battle, but that doesn’t mean you win the war. On the contrary, you can take a city but you can’t take the hearts and minds of its people and Ukrainians are demonstrating that every single day.”

Watch the video from his earlier press conference below.

The International Monetary Fund has approved $1.4 billion in emergency financing for Ukraine to help meet urgent spending needs and mitigate the economic impact of Russia’s military invasion.

The global lender said Ukrainian authorities had cancelled an existing stand-by lending arrangement with the IMF, but would work with the fund to design an appropriate economic program focused on rehabilitation and growth when conditions permit, Reuters reports.

“The Russian military invasion of Ukraine has been responsible for a massive humanitarian and economic crisis,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement after the meeting, predicting a deep recession in Ukraine this year.

“Financing needs are large, urgent, and could rise significantly as the war continues,” she said. Once the war was over, Ukraine was likely to need additional “large support.”

Boris Johnson committed to tightening sanctions “in order to impose the maximum economic cost on Russia”, in a call with Zelenskiy.

Per a statement from Downing Street, the two discussed the strike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol

Both leaders condemned the horrifying attack on a maternity hospital in Mariupol and the failure by Russian forces to respect ceasefire agreements in humanitarian corridors. The Prime Minister noted that this was yet further evidence that Putin was acting with careless disregard for International Humanitarian Law.

Johnson also “outlined the work the UK is doing to provide the military equipment Ukraine needed to defend itself,” according to the statement.

In his latest address, Zelenskiy thanked Johnson for his support and urged western nations to help Ukraine “to finally secure our sky”. NATO has rejected Ukraine’s calls for a no-fly zone.

“Either close the Ukrainian sky from Russian bombs, or give us fighter jets so that we did it ourselves. The pause of indecision has become murderous,” Zelenskiy said.

Ukraine confirmed that the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant has been disconnected from the electricity grid, raising concerns that a lack of external power to the site could compromise nuclear safety.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a statement:

The IAEA agreed with the Ukrainian regulator that its disconnection from the grid would not have a critical impact on essential safety functions at the site, where various radioactive waste management facilities are located. Specifically, regarding the site’s spent fuel storage facility, the volume of cooling water in the pool is sufficient to maintain effective heat removal from the spent fuel without a supply of electricity. The site also has reserve emergency power supplies with diesel generators and batteries.

Nevertheless, the lack of power is likely to lead to a further deterioration of operational radiation safety at the site and create additional stress for around 210 technical experts and guards who have not been able to rotate for the past two weeks, in effect living there around the clock.

“From day to day, we are seeing a worsening situation at the Chornobyl NPP, especially for radiation safety, and for the staff managing the facility under extremely difficult and challenging circumstances,” Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said. “I repeat my urgent appeal to the forces in effective control of the plant to respect internal radiation protection procedures, to facilitate the safe rotation of staff and to take other important steps to ensure safety.”

IAEA said it had also lost remote data transmission from its safeguards systems at the Chornobyl and Zaporizhzhya, another Ukrainian nuclear power plant overtaken Russia

More than 1 million children have left Ukraine and fled to neighboring countries in the less than two weeks since Russia began its war on Ukraine, reported Reuters:

More than 1 million children have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries in the less than two weeks since Russia started its invasion of Ukraine, the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday.

At least 37 children had been killed and 50 injured, Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

Russell said that she was “horrified” by the reported attack on a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where officials said a Russian air strike buried patients under rubble despite an agreed ceasefire.

“This attack, if confirmed, underscores the horrific toll this war is exacting on Ukraine*s children and families,” Russell said.

The bombing, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called an “atrocity,” took place despite an agreed ceasefire to enable thousands of civilians trapped in the city to escape.

Mariupol city council said the hospital had been hit several times by an air strike, causing “colossal” destruction. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Russian forces do not fire on civilian targets.”

More than 2 million people have fled Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion on Feb. 24. Moscow calls its action a “special military operation” to disarm its neighbor and dislodge leaders it calls “neo-Nazis.”

Most of those who fled are women and children, as able-bodied men have been ordered by the Kyiv government to stay home to fight.

Ukrainian explosive ordnance disposal specialists (EODs) reportedly defuse a Russian bomb with their two hands a bottle of water.

From Charles Lister, senior fellow and the Director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute:

More photos coming out of civilians on the ground in Ukraine as Russia’s invasion continues:

Industrial conglomerate 3M announced that it is suspending its business in Russia, the latest Western company to do so following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

From Reuters:

“After re-assessing our business in Russia, we have decided to suspend all business operations there,” the company told Reuters in an email, adding that its focus continues to be on the safety of its employees and their families.

Rival industrial conglomerate Honeywell International Inc had also announced the suspension of its business in Russia, as the West continues to pressure Kremlin with severe economic sanctions.

Today, Nestle as well as tobacco brands Philip Morris and Imperial Brands temporarily stopped business in Russia, with McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo making similar announcements yesterday.

Russian’s delegation at peace talks with Ukraine “will not concede a single negotiating point,” reported a RIA news agency today.

From Reuters:

Russia’s delegation at peace talks with Ukraine “will not concede a single negotiating point,” RIA news agency cited negotiator Leonid Slutsky as telling a television station on Wednesday.

The two sides have carried out three rounds of talks since the start of the Russian invasion. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is scheduled to have talks in Turkey on Thursday with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.

John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, has been talking about the plan to deliver Polish MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine. In short, the plan is off.

He said the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin had being talking to his Polish counterpart, and had “stressed that we do not support the transfer of additional fighter aircraft to the Ukrainian Air Force at this time, and therefore had no desire to see them in our custody either.”

Kirby went through the reasons, the US was against the transfer of combat aircraft.

“First, we believe the best way to support Ukrainian defense is by providing them the weapons and the systems that they need most to defeat Russian aggression, in particular, anti-armor and air-defense. We, along with other nations, continue to send them these weapons and we know that they’re being used with great effect. The slow Russian advance in the north and the contested airspace over Ukraine is evidence alone of that.”

“Although Russian air capabilities are significant, their effectiveness has been limited due to Ukrainian strategic operational and tactical ground-based air-defense systems surface to air missiles, and Manpads [shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles]. Secondly, the Ukrainian Air Force currently has several squadrons of fully mission capable aircraft. We assess that adding aircraft to the Ukrainian inventory is not likely to significantly change the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Air Force relative to Russian capabilities. Therefore, we believe that the gain from transferring those MIG-29s is low.”

“Finally, the intelligence community has assessed the transfer of MiG-29s to Ukraine may be mistaken as escalatory and could result in a significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with Nato. Therefore, we also assess the transfer of the MiG 29 to Ukraine to be high risk. We also believe that there are alternative options that are much better suited to support the Ukrainian military in their fight against Russia. We will continue to pursue those options.”

Systems of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that were monitoring nuclear material at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine have stopped transmitting data, said the agency today, reported Reuters.

Yesterday, the same interruption of data was reported at the Chernobyl power plant amid an urgent request by Ukraine to the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, about rotating the 210 technical personnel and guards working at the plant.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi “said he was concerned about the sudden interruption of such data flows to the IAEA’s Vienna headquarters from the two sites, where large amounts of nuclear material are present in the form of spent or fresh nuclear fuel and other types of nuclear material,” said the IAEA in a statement.

The US is reportedly considering sanctions against Russian nuclear power supplier Rosatom.

From Bloomberg’s Ari Natter:

SCOOP: The Biden administration is considering sanctioning Russian uranium supplier Rosatom. Huge implications for domestic uranium mining and nuclear power operators. No decision has been made yet.

Ukraine is preparing to potentially move its sensitive data and servers to another country if Russia’s invasion continues deeper into the country, said a senior cybersecurity official to Reuters.

Victor Zhora, the deputy chief of Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, emphasized his department was planning for a contingency, but that it is being considered at all suggests Ukrainians want to be ready for any Russian threat to seize sensitive government documents.

“We are preparing the ground,” Zhora said. Plan A was to protect IT infrastructure within Ukraine. Removing it to a another country would only be a “Plan B or C”.

The move could only happen after regulatory changes approved by Ukrainian lawmakers, Zhora said.

Government officials have already been shipping equipment and backups to more secure areas of Ukraine beyond the reach of Russian forces, who invaded on Feb. 24 and are laying siege to several cities.

Last month Zhora told Politico there were plans to move critical data out of the capital Kyiv should it be threatened, but preparations for potentially moving data abroad go a step further.

Ukraine has received offers to host data from a variety of countries, Zhora said, declining to identify them. For reasons of proximity “a European location will be preferred,” he said.

“There are a lot options,” he said. “All the proposals are highly welcome and worth considering.”

Zhora gave few details of how such a move might be executed, but he said past efforts to keep government data out of Russia’s grasp involved either the physical transport of servers and removable storage devices or the digital migration of data from one service or server to another.

Hilton Worldwide Holdings, the multinational hospitality company, said today it would be stopping all new developmental activity in Russia.

Hilton also said that it had closed all its Moscow offices, citing the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Here is Hilton’s full statement:

Hilton joins those around the world in shock and disbelief at the tragic events unfolding in Ukraine. Our hotels have always been part of the fabric of our communities that we serve, and we take seriously our promise to positively impact the places where we live and work. In addition to the steps we have already taken to protect our Team Members and guests, we are taking the following further actions in response to the current crisis:

• We are donating up to 1 million room nights to support Ukrainian refugees and humanitarian relief efforts across Europe, in partnership with American Express, #HospitalityHelps, and our community of owners.
• We have closed our corporate office in Moscow and will ensure continued work and pay for any impacted Team Members.
• We are suspending all new development activity in Russia.
• We will donate any Hilton profits from business operations in Russia to the humanitarian relief efforts for Ukraine.
• And as previously announced, the Hilton Effect Foundation has contributed $50,000 to World Central Kitchen and Project Hope to further assist with humanitarian aid.

Hilton continues to monitor the situation as it evolves. We are keeping our Team Members and all those impacted by these events in our thoughts and hope for a peaceful resolution to this crisis.

You can also read the statement here.

More images from an earlier Russian airstrike today that destroyed a maternity hospital in Mariupol, where pregnant women and medical staff were present.

From the Kyiv Independent:

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has rejected every off-ramp offered by the US to de-escalate and has, instead, ramped up Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, reported Reuters.

“We’ve sought to provide possible off-ramps to President Putin. He’s the only one who can decide whether or not to take them. So far, every time there’s been an opportunity to do just that, he’s pressed the accelerator and continued down this horrific road that he’s been pursuing,” Blinken said at a joint news conference with his British counterpart, Liz Truss.

“He has a clear plan right now to brutalize Ukraine but to what end?” Blinken said, adding that Ukrainians have shown that they would not accept any “puppet regime” that Putin might try to install to replace the elected Ukrainian government.

“If he tries to enforce such a puppet regime by keeping Russian forces in Ukraine, it will be a long, bloody, drawn-out mess,” Blinken said.

Senior US defence officials last month assessed that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was designed to “decapitate” Ukraine’s government.

Read the full article here (paywall).

Nestle as well as tobacco brands Philip Morris and Imperial Brands are the latest multinational corporations to pull out of Russia as pressure mounts for western companies to take a stand given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reports Reuters:

The world’s biggest packaged food group fell into line with rivals Procter & Gamble (PG.N) and Unilever (ULVR.L) in halting investment in Russia, while cigarette maker Philip Morris said it would scale down manufacturing and Imperial went further and suspended it.

These announcements follow similar ones from McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo yesterday that they would be suspending business in Russia.

Previously, Estée Lauder and Shell announced that they were pulling out of Russia amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Read the full article here (paywall).

Russia’s stock market will not open on Thursday, but the foreign exchange market, money market and repo market will open at 10am Moscow time, said Russia’s central bank, reports Reuters.

An announcement on the exchange’s opening hours on Friday will be made by 9am Moscow time on Friday. The exchange has closed several times since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

More than 40,000 civilians were evacuated from all over Ukraine today, but authorities struggled to get people away from conflict zones around the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said.

In a post on social media, Arakhamia said:

Over 40,000 women and children were evacuated from all over Ukraine in one day. Tried 100,000, but failed.

Thousands of dockworkers at ports along the US west coast are refusing to handle any Russian cargo in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Dani Anguiano writes.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents about 20,000 workers at 29 ports from Bellingham, Washington, to San Diego, California, announced the policy last week, calling the invasion “an act of aggression that endangers a population of more than 40 million people”.

With this action in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, we send a strong message that we unequivocally condemn the Russian invasion,

said Willie Adams, the ILWU International president.

West coast dockworkers are proud to do our part to join with those around the world who are bravely taking a stand and making sacrifices for the good of Ukraine.

The US has seen indications that Russia is dropping “dumb bombs” – unguided munitions with no precise target – on Ukraine, a senior US defence official said.

Ukrainian officials are increasingly accusing Russia of intentionally targeting civilians. Russia has insisted it is using precision munitions and hitting military targets.

The official told reporters:

We do have indications that the Russians are in fact dropping some dumb munitions.

They added that the US was observing “increasing damage to civilian infrastructure and civilian casualties”.

The comments came shortly after Ukraine accused Russia on Wednesday of bombing a children’s hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol.

The US official declined to comment on whether Wednesday’s hospital strike was a result of their use, saying:

We don’t have visibility into their targeting process.

The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, were both asked today about the possibility of a no-fly zone over humanitarian corridors in Ukraine.

Truss pointed to the anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft system that the UK announced today it would be supplying to Ukraine:

The reality is that setting up a no-fly zone would lead to a direct confrontation between Nato and Russia, and that is not what we are looking at.

What we are looking at is making sure that the Ukrainians are able to defend their own country with the best possible selection of anti-tank weapons and anti-[aircraft] systems.

Blinken said he agreed with everything Truss said, later adding:

If I were in president Zelenskiy’s position, I’m sure I would be asking for everything possible, in his mind, to help the Ukrainian people and, as the foreign secretary and I have laid out, both of our countries, and so many others, have done extraordinary things to make sure that the Ukrainians have in their hands the means to effectively defend themselves against this war of choice from Russia.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has verified 18 attacks on healthcare facilities, health workers and ambulances in Ukraine, resulting in 10 deaths and 16 injuries, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

The WHO chief told a press conference:

These attacks deprive whole communities of healthcare.

Ukraine’s health system was proving “remarkably resilient” but the violence was creating a multi-pronged health crisis, the WHO emergencies director, Michael Ryan, said.

Some 1,000 health facilities, including hospitals and health clinics, are situated within 10km of the frontlines, he said.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has been asked about the apparent fiasco surrounding the plan to deliver Polish MiG-29s to Ukraine.

I think what we’re seeing is that Poland’s proposal shows that there are some complexities that the issue presents when it comes to providing security assistance. We have to make sure that we’re doing it in the right way.

Blinken said at a joint press conference with UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss.

Departing from a US Nato base in Germany to fly into airspace contested with Russia over Ukraine raises some serious concerns for the entire Nato alliance. So we have to work through the specifics of these things going forward. It’s simply not clear to us that there’s a substantive rationale for doing it in the way that was put forward yesterday.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has been comparing the bombardment of Ukrainian cities with the wartime Blitz that Britain endured, Julian Borger reports.

I believe one reason we’re seeing such an outpouring of support from the British people is because they’ve been through something similar, the harrowing Blitz during World War Two, which inflicted colossal suffering on the country’s people killing more than 60,000 British civilians, wounding 86,000 more,

Blinken said, standing alongside UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, at the state department in Washington.

It’s impossible to see the images of people seeking refuge in the Kyiv Metro in 2022 and not think of those who sheltered in the London Underground in 1942.

He added:

The grit, the compassionate determination that Britain exhibited eight decades ago that inspired the world, is exactly what we see in the people of Ukraine today, and it’s why we need to stand with them.

Boris Johnson has described the reported attack by Russia on a children’s and maternity hospital in Mariupol as “depraved”.

Some 17 people have been wounded after a Russian airstrike reportedly hit a children’s hospital and maternity ward in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol this afternoon, the governor of Ukraine’s Donetsk region said.

Some of those injured included women in labour, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

He accused Russia of carrying out the strike during an agreed ceasefire period that was meant to allow the evacuation of civilians from the besieged southern city.

Russia has denied targeting civilians in what it calls a “special operation” in Ukraine.

At least 516 civilians have been killed since Russia began its invasion on 24 February, the UN human rights office has said.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it had verified 1,424 civilian casualties – 516 killed and 908 injured since the Ukraine conflict began two weeks ago – up from 1,335 reported (474 killed and 861 injured) reported on Tuesday.

The real casualty figures from Ukraine are “considerably higher”,

especially in government-controlled territory and especially in recent days, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.

Most civilian casualties were caused by explosive weapons including shelling and missile and airstrikes, it said.

Britain is planning to supply Starstreak anti-aircraft weapons and “a small consignment” of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine as Russian forces close in on Kyiv to the east, the UK’s defence secretary has said.

The UK would also continue to supply NLAW short-range anti-tank weapons, Ben Wallace told the Commons, and had already given Ukraine 3,615 of the portable missile systems – nearly double the 2,000 figure previously disclosed.

Wallace said Ukraine had already received “900 man-portable anti-air missiles” – a reference to Stingers supplied by other Nato countries – but was desperately seeking more arms as Russian forces attempted to encircle Kyiv.

“The capability needs strengthening,” Wallace said.

So in response to Ukrainian requests, the government has taken a decision to explore the donation of Starstreak high-velocity man-portable anti-air missiles.

Later, in response to questions from MPs as to how long the supply decision would take, Wallace said:

We are in principle going to do it.

He acknowledged Ukrainian soldiers would need to be trained in how to use the missiles.

How we are doing it [training] is sensitive.

Starstreak is the British army’s equivalent to the better known US-made Stinger air-to-ground missiles that have been supplied to Ukraine by the US, Germany and the Netherlands among others since the Russian invasion. They are laser-guided with a range of 7km, unlike Stingers, which rely on infrared, and are designed to be harder to jam.

An adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, says women in labour and children are under the wreckage after Russia reportedly carried out an airstrike that severely damaged a children’s hospital in the southern port city of Mariupol.

From Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak:

Note: events are moving fast and the above footage has not been independently verified by the Guardian.

Russia’s defence ministry has admitted some conscript soldiers are taking part in the Russian invasion of Ukraine – despite multiple denials by its president, Vladimir Putin.

The ministry said some conscripts – soldiers compulsorily drafted into the army – had been taken prisoner by the Ukrainian army.

We have discovered several facts of the presence of conscripts in units taking part in the special military operation in Ukraine. Practically all such soldiers have been pulled out to Russia.

Just yesterday, Putin had said Russia would not use any conscript soldiers in Ukraine in a televised message to mark International Women’s Day:

I emphasise that conscript soldiers are not participating in hostilities and will not participate in them.

The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, is due to arrive in Poland later today to meet leaders in Warsaw about the Ukraine crisis before travelling on to Bucharest.

Reuters reports that she will collaborate with Poland and Romania on next steps to respond to Russia’s invasion and to reassure them of Washington’s support.

But, as Joan E Greve reports on the Guardian’s US politics blog, her trip comes as the US and Poland have publicly clashed over providing fighter jets to Ukrainian forces:

Poland’s foreign minister announced Tuesday that the country was “ready to deploy – immediately and free of charge – all their Russian-made MiG-29 jets to the [US] Ramstein air base and place them at the disposal of the government of the United States of America”.

It was originally expected that the US would receive the planes and then donate them to Ukraine, but the Pentagon released a statement hours after Poland’s announcement saying that was not a feasible plan.

“The prospect of fighter jets ‘at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America’ departing from a US/NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace that is contested with Russia over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire Nato alliance,” said John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary.

“We will continue to consult with Poland and our other Nato allies about this issue and the difficult logistical challenges it presents, but we do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one.”

A senior administration official said Tuesday night that the White House has been in consistent communication with the Polish government about how to best provide security assistance to Ukraine.

“That’s a dialogue that absolutely will continue up to and as part of the vice-president’s trip,” the official said. “This is a key priority for us and for all of our Nato allies, and so we expect that we will continue talking about how to achieve this really important objective.”

Ramstein air base in south-western Germany is headquarters for the US air forces in Europe and Nato allied air command.

BBC Kyiv correspondent, James Waterhouse, reports a “mixed picture” on humanitarian corridors, saying some have made it from Irpin to Kyiv, but others are trapped in Bucha. Waterhouse also reports shelling blocking the Mariupol route.

Guardian journalist Luke Harding reports on comments from the deputy mayor of Mariupol, Sergei Orlov, who has just been speaking:

Civilians have been unable to evacuate from the Ukrainian town of Izyum because of Russian shelling in the eastern Kharkiv region, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said.

An evacuation of civilians was scheduled to take place today from Izyum to Lozova as one of the six “humanitarian corridors” today, but Synehubov said buses were still waiting at the entrance to the town.

He added that negotiations with the Russians were under way with the support of the Red Cross.

The loss of power at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine does not have any critical impact on safety, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

In a statement this afternoon, the IAEA said:

Heat load of spent fuel storage pool and volume of cooling water at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sufficient for effective heat removal without need for electrical supply.

French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said France is in contact with the IAEA to assess the situation at Chernobyl.

France has asked Russia to cooperate, he said:

We are trying to clarify these reports together with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

A German environment ministry spokesperson said Germany had no knowledge of radiation leaking from the Chernobyl plant.

A local Kyiv orchestra performed the Ukrainian national anthem as Russian forces advance on the capital city from several directions.

The Kyiv-Classic Symphony Orchestra played to a small crowd on Kyiv’s central Maidan Square today, who applauded when the national anthem was finished and a woman cried out: “To Ukraine!”

The orchestra also played an excerpt from Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, on which the European Union’s anthem is based.

Boris Johnson has refused to drop visa requirements for Ukrainians fleeing the country as Russian forces continued to bombard Ukraine’s towns and cities.

The European Union has allowed visa-free travel for Ukrainians, but the UK prime minister insisted that the UK was right to require the paperwork to be completed.

Speaking in the Commons today, Johnson said:

We’ve already got 1,000 people in under the existing scheme, that number will climb very sharply. No one has been turned away.

Johnson said security checks were vital to prevent Russian agents from entering the UK.

We know how unscrupulous Putin can be in his methods, it would not be right to expose this country to unnecessary security risk and we will not do it.

We are going to be as generous as we can possibly be, but we must have checks.

Meanwhile, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, promised extra military equipment for the Ukrainian forces, with fresh supplies of anti-tank missiles and the possibility of anti-aircraft systems.

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

Video released by Ukrainian ground forces shows destroyed Russian vehicles in Sumy region.

Ukrainian service personnel are also seen inspecting captured boxes of ammunition in the footage, which was filmed on Tuesday after Russian bombing of the north-east city of Sumy killed at least 21 civilians, including two children.

More than 400,000 people are being “held hostage” in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol by Russian forces who are blocking humanitarian aid and evacuation, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said.

Conditions in the port of Mariupol have been described as “apocalyptic”. Hundreds of thousands of residents there have been sheltering from brutal Russian shelling and missile attacks for more than a week without water, power or heating. Phone signals are also down.

Attempts on Tuesday to begin the process of bussing about half the besieged city’s 400,000 desperate inhabitants out via a “humanitarian corridor” were abandoned after the Ukrainian government accused Russian forces of shelling it.

Ukraine has appealed to Russian forces to observe their “official public commitment” to hold their fire during a 12-hour window today, in order to evacuate civilians.

Kuleba accused Russia of holding 400,000 residents of Mariupol hostage by shelling the city despite efforts to establish a safe evacuation corridor.

Almost 3,000 newborn babies lack medicine and food.

Russia continues holding hostage over 400,000 people in Mariupol, blocks humanitarian aid and evacuation. Indiscriminate shelling continues.

A convoy of civilians, consisting mainly of women, children and the elderly, have been evacuated from the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar through a “humanitarian corridor” after a temporary ceasefire was agreed with Russian forces, its mayor said.

Enerhodar is the site of Europe’s largest nuclear power station, which has been held by Russian troops since they captured the plant late last week.

Mayor Dmytro Orlov said “mostly women and children, the elderly, left the city”.

Orlov earlier welcomed the announcement of a humanitarian corridor to and from the town, and said insulin, some medicines and food would be delivered to the city.

More than 400 Ukrainians who protested against the occupation of Kherson by Russian forces have been detained by Russia’s national guard, Ukraine’s military high command said.

In a statement, the Ukrainian military high command said hundreds had been arrested for protesting in the now Russian-occupied Kherson.

Due to the furious resistance of the residents of Kherson, the occupiers are attempting to introduce an administrative-police regime.

Russia has repeated allegations that the United States supported a military biological programme in Ukraine involving deadly pathogens including plague and anthrax – claims that the Pentagon has described as “absurd”.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said evidence of the alleged programme had been uncovered in Russia during what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Zakharova said:

We can already conclude that in Ukrainian biological laboratories in direct proximity to the territory of our country, development of components of biological weapons was being carried out.

She went on to allege that Russia had documents showing that the Ukrainian health ministry had ordered the destruction of samples of plague, cholera, anthrax and other pathogens after 24 February.

Both the Pentagon and the Ukrainian government has strongly denied these allegations, and Reuters reports that it was not possible to independently confirm the authenticity of any such documents.

Zakharova said the alleged programme was financed by the Pentagon, and demanded transparency from Washington.

We are not talking here about peaceful uses or scientific goals ... What were you up to there?

Russia “demands details”, she continued:

The US Defence Department and the presidential administration of the United States are obliged to officially explain to the global community, officially, not through talking heads, about the programmes in Ukraine.

In response to earlier Russian allegations about the purported military biological programme in Ukraine, a Pentagon spokesperson said on Tuesday:

This absurd Russian misinformation is patently false.

A Ukrainian presidential spokesperson said Ukraine “strictly denies any such allegation”.

Following Zakharova’s remarks earlier today, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia considers its claims that Ukraine conducted military biological programmes as an important issue for the whole world.

Hello from London, I’m Léonie Chao-Fong and I’ll be bringing you 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.

The Irish government has just slashed excise duty on fuel to soften the blow of price hikes in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

The new EU sanctions (reported earlier) will include travel bans and asset freezes for around 100 Russians, reports Reuters.

The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said a decision could be made later today.

“Member states are working on a package of sanctions, around 100 people responsible at different levels of government,” he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg. He said he hoped for agreement “by the end of this session today”.

The UK defence minister, Ben Wallace, is to make a statement in parliament on Ukraine, the house of commons leader has announced, reports Reuters.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko, also called for Britain’s visa requirement to be lifted for refugees.

PA reports that he told the Commons home affairs committee:

I understand how sensitive it is for your society...how reasonable, how justified it is with your own system, that’s frankly for you to decide. We will be happy if all the barriers are dropped for some period of time when we can get maximum (numbers) of people, then we will deal with that.

Ukrainian authorities say they do not know what the radiation levels are at Chernobyl nuclear power plant and have no control of Zaporizhzhia since they were seized by Russian troops.

The energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, on Wednesday said that Ukraine has not heard about what is happening there since it was seized and that the country has no control over what is happening at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, reports Reuters.

The Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko, has suggested that fighter jets would be more useful to Ukraine than Britain sending a plane to collect refugees.

Asked whether he would like to see a plane travel to Poland or Romania to bring back refugees, PA reports that Vadym Prystaiko told the Commons home affairs committee: “If you want to send planes, send F-16s.”

He said the UK could expect at least 100,000 people coming from Ukraine to the UK to reunite with relatives.

“I would expect 100,000 - at least - to come here to their relatives, some of them just members of families of your citizens who have no Ukrainian blood but for different reasons they have connections... which we are not aware of,” he told MPs.

The UK transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has warned against British soldiers traveling to Ukraine to illegally fight, saying it is a “dangerous situation”.

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:

You cannot go and fight if you’re in the British Army, you cannot just get up and go and fight. Of course that’s inappropriate behaviour and you would expect the army to have some very, very strict rules in place, as they do.

Asked what Russia might do if a British soldier was captured or killed, PA reports that Shapps said:

There’s a big difference between Britain sending its army in and some people who are breaking with our law and going to do it.

But, clearly, this is a dangerous situation. And clearly, we want to make sure that the assistance we’re providing is done in an official way - like the anti-tank missiles that we provided prior to and during this conflict, and like the 22,000 Ukrainians that we’ve trained.

International students and Ukrainians were among those who managed to escape Sumy by train last night after two weeks trapped under fire in a basement with insufficient food.

Around 7,000 people were safely evacuated yesterday, the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford reports.

Exiled Belarus opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, is in London today meeting with representatives of the UK government to discuss support for the Belarusian anti-war movement and free media, she says.

Here’s a recent interview with Tsikhanouskaya by the Guardian’s associate editor for Europe, Katherine Butler:

Poland is ready to supply MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine - but only within the framework of Nato, an adviser to the president has said.

It comes after the US rejected a proposal to provide Washington with Polish planes, reports Reuters.

“The USA does not want these planes to come to Ukraine from American bases,” Jakub Kumoch, an adviser to Andrzej Duda, told public broadcaster TVP Info. “Poland is ready to act, but only within the framework of the alliance, within the framework of NATO.”

Ukraine has asked western countries to provide fighter jets to respond to the Russian invasion. But yesterday, after Poland said it was ready to deploy all of its MIG-29 jets to Ramstein airbase in Germany for the US and urged other Nato members to do the same, the Pentagon dismissed the offer as not “tenable”.

The race to save Ukraine’s cultural heritage. Luke Harding in Lviv and Harriet Sherwood report:

“If we lose our culture we lose our identity,” said Onyschenko, the head of Lviv’s city council heritage protection office. “Lviv has always been multicultural. Poles, Germans, Jews, Armenians and Hungarians built it. It’s Unesco listed.” She said she and her colleagues were working their way through a long list of objects that needed to be protected.

Russia’s war on Ukraine has been an all-round disaster. Its army had shelled densely populated cities, killing hundreds. More than 2 million refugees have fled abroad in Europe’s biggest exodus since the second world war. In besieged Mariupol, families have spent more than a week living in desperate conditions without heat, water or power.

Alongside this humanitarian catastrophe, cultural assets have been bombed and damaged. They include a museum in the city of Ivankiv, north-west of Kyiv, which housed dozens of works by the Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko, some now lost forever. Last week Russian forces shelled the assumption cathedral in Kharkiv, hurling debris into its nave.

China has accused Nato of pushing tensions between Russia and Ukraine to “breaking point”.

At a daily news briefing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian urged the US to take China’s concerns seriously and avoid undermining its rights or interests in handling the situation in Ukraine and ties with Russia, reports Reuters.

Here are some of the latest images from Ukraine and Poland, where most refugees have fled:

The British papers have lapped up Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s speech to the House of Commons yesterday in which the Ukrainian president deliberately invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill to act as a rallying cry for more help for his embattled nation.

My colleague Martin Farrer has had a look at the front pages and has this story:

And if you want a bit of a reminder of what Zelenskiy said, here’s a video of his address:

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will travel to Turkey on Wednesday for talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, Reuters reports.

The diplomats will meet at the resort city of Antalya after repeated offers by Turkey to host talks and mediate between the two sides.

The New York Times will have no reporters on the ground in Russia for the first time in a century after the news organisation joined those pulling out of the country.

Russian authorities made reporting from the country impossible when it recently criminalised the act of describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “war” with those who commit the offence facing up to 15 years in prison.

As a result Russian media outlets have been forced to close, while global news organisations have pulled out their teams owing to the risk of arrest.

Former NYT Moscow bureau chief, Neil MacFarquhar, said on social media Russia has always been considered a “important country, an important story” but the recent turn. had “just killed off that long tradition”.

“We’ve had reporters there continuously since 1921, with one or two short interruptions due to visa hiccoughs. Not Stalin, not the Cold War, nothing drove us out,” MacFarquhar said.

Some images from the evacuation of Sumy:

Regional governor Dmytro Zhyvytskyy said a humanitarian corridor out of the besieged Ukrainian city of Sumy will continue to function on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

About 5,000 people rode buses out of the northeastern city on Tuesday after Moscow and Kyiv agreed on the corridor.

Zhyvytskyy said about 1,000 cars were also able to leave, moving towards the city of Poltava.

The successful evacuation comes days after New York Times reporters witnessed a Russian mortar strike in the city of Irpin that killed four people, including a mother and her teenage son and eight-year-old daughter, as they attempted to flee to safety in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian general staff says it continues to hold Kyiv despite attacks by Russian forces overnight while fighting continues across the country.

The latest update says there is fighting in the north and north-west with “combat operations” taking place in Polisky and Volyn, along Ukraine’s border. It also says there is also fighting in the settlements of Nizhyn, Ivanytsia, Trostyanets and also in the city of Chernihiv.

In the south it says operations are continuing to secure “airports and critical infrastructure”, while the Ukrainian airforce is targeting artillery shelling civilian ares while providing air cover.

The update also alleges a propaganda campaign is underway to “aimed at discrediting the military and political leadership of our state” and that Russian forces have taken up firing positions next to hospitals in Chernihiv.

Investors are turning to clean energy stocks as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to further raise oil prices and highlights Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas.

US markets are closed right now but on the Australian exchange the price of the Global Clean Energy ETF offered by VanEck, which tracks the price of big renewable energy companies that are on an index maintained by S&P, is up more than 8% so far today.

The index itself was up 5.6% overnight.

The Russian market, which is heavy with oil and gas companies, has already been devastated by sanctions imposed by the US and European countries, although so far western powers have steered clear of doing anything that could stop customers paying for Russian oil and gas.

Russia itself is also about to default on its sovereign debt due to the sanctions and the threat of more to come, ratings agency Fitch said.

VanEck senior associate Alice Shen said the US’s decision to ban imports of Russian oil could further boost prices, adding to the attractiveness of renewables.

“This trend towards clean energy stocks too will likely gain momentum as energy consumers seek substitutes for fossil fuels and the demand for renewable energy rises to meet climate change carbon emissions targets,” she said.

“The Russia-Ukraine war highlights the vulnerability of countries that rely on fossil fuels, arguably raising the importance of clean energy as an energy supply and it could be an important impetus for the acceleration to clean energy globally.”

Sumy mayor Dmytro Zhyvytskyi says one person has been killed, fourteen missing and others missing following shelling in Okhtyr overnight.

Posting photos of the damage to social media, he reported that civilian infrastructure had been targeted including a railway station, executive committee building, local department stores and shops.

Zhyvytskyi said the city is without power, water and has experienced disruption to its sewerage system.

Humanitarian corridors from Sumy were opened overnight to allow residents caught in the fighting to flee.

It is a new morning in Kyiv but residents in the Ukrainian capital have been greeted with air raid sirens and explosions.

Any strike against supply lines from Nato members supporting Ukraine with arms and ammunition will be considered an escalation of the conflict, CBC News reports.

Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that while supply lines inside Ukraine were vulnerable to attack, those leading up to the border fell under the protection of the alliance.

“An attack on Nato territory, on Nato forces, Nato capabilities, that would be an attack on Nato,” Stoltenberg said.

There have been concern among some in US intelligence services that Russia may attempt to stem the flow of support to Ukraine with an airstrike or long-range artillery.

Article 5 of Nato’s founding treaty states that an attack on one member state is an attack on all 30 members.