01:54
Ukrainian playwright Natal’ya Vorozhbit writes for us about her desperate departure from Kyiv after Russia’s invasion.
“How does it feel to be bombed out of your home town?” she asks. “I grabbed two rings, took my mother, daughter and the cat.”
Read Vorozhbit’s full story below.
Updated
01:38
Russian troops forced to return to Belarus and Russia to resupply, MoD says
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has just released its latest intelligence report, claiming Russian units suffering heavy losses have been forced to return to Belarus and Russia to reorganise and resupply.
The full report, published just after 6am GMT, reads:
Russian units suffering heavy losses have been forced to return to Belarus and Russia to reorganise and resupply.
Such activity is placing further pressure on Russia’s already strained logistics and demonstrates the difficulties Russia is having reorganising its units in forward areas within Ukraine.
Russia will likely continue to compensate for its reduced ground manoeuvre capability through mass artillery and missile strikes.
Russia’s stated focus on an offensive in Donetsk and Luhansk is likely a tacit admission that it is struggling to sustain more than one significant axis of advance.”
Updated
01:33
Ukraine’s eastern city of Lysychansk has been shelled by heavy artillery this morning with widespread damage to residential areas, according to local officials.
“There is significant destruction of high-rise buildings. Information about the number of dead and wounded is being specified. There are a lot of blockages,” Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai wrote in a Telegram message.
01:26
Western leaders sceptical over Putin’s withdrawal claims
Western diplomats and leaders have also expressed doubts that Russia’s promise to withdraw troops and engage in peace talks was more than a ploy to dress up setbacks on the ground and a possible tactical exercise in playing for time.
US president Joe Biden remained cautious, saying it remains to be seen if Russia will follow through on its pledge to scale down its military operations in northern Ukraine.
An unconvinced Biden told a White House press conference on Tuesday: “We’ll see. I don’t read anything into it until I see what their actions are.”
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he had not seen anything indicating that talks were progressing in a “constructive way” and suggested Russian indications of a pullback could be an attempt by Moscow to “deceive people and deflect attention”.
Speaking on a visit to Morocco, Blinken said that there was “what Russia says, and what Russia does, and we’re focused on the latter. What Russia is doing is the continued brutalisation of Ukraine.”
John Kirby, press secretary at the Pentagon, warned against “fooling ourselves” over the Kremlin’s claims. “Has there been some movement by some Russian units away from Kyiv in the last day or so? Yeah, we think so, small numbers,” he said. “But we believe that this is a repositioning, not a real withdrawal, and that we all should be prepared to watch for a major offensive against other areas of Ukraine.”
One official said: “Certainly, in terms of the negotiations, nothing that we have seen so far has demonstrated to us that Putin and his colleagues are particularly serious … it’s more of a tactical exercise in playing for time.”
Updated
01:14
A US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts are about to depart the International Space Station (ISS) together on a Soyuz capsule back to earth this morning, despite heightened US-Russian antagonism over the war in Ukraine.
The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying Nasa’s Mark Vande Hei and his cosmonaut peers Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov is scheduled to undock from ISS at 6:45am GMT and make a parachute landing in central Kazakhstan nearly five hours later.
The landing zone lies roughly 400 km (250 miles) to the northeast of Russia’s space launch facility at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Just one day after Russia invaded Ukraine – Dmitry Rogozin, the director-general of Russia’s space agency, accused the US of trying to “destroy” cooperation at the ISS.
“If you block cooperation with us, then who is going to save the ISS from an uncontrolled descent from orbit and then falling onto the territory of the United States or Europe?” he said.
Nasa, however, said that it would continue to work with all its international partners – including Russia – and that export sanctions continue to allow it to work with Russia.
01:02
‘Ukrainians are not naive’: Zelenskiy voices doubt on Russian withdrawal
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dismissed Russia’s pledge to drastically cut back its military activity in northern Ukraine, saying “Ukrainians are not naive people” and vowing to continue defensive military efforts.
In a video address early on Wednesday, he said:
Of course, we see all the risks. Of course, we see no reason to trust the words of certain representatives of a state that continues to fight for our destruction.
Ukrainians are not naive people. Ukrainians have already learned during these 34 days of invasion and over the past eight years of the war in Donbas that only a concrete result can be trusted. The facts – if they change on our land.”
The Ukrainian leader urged his people to “not lose vigilance” despite saying the signals received from peace talks with Russia appeared positive.
The situation has not become easier. The scale of the challenges has not diminished.
The Russian army still has significant potential to continue attacks against our state. They still have a lot of equipment and enough people completely deprived of rights whom they can send to the cauldron of war.”
Zelenskiy said Ukraine would not be reducing its defence efforts.
The enemy is still in our territory. The shelling of our cities continues. Mariupol is blocked. Missile and air strikes do not stop. This is the reality. These are the facts.
Yes, we can call positive the signals we hear from the negotiating platform. But these signals do not silence the explosion of Russian shells.”
00:50
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has arrived in China today in his first visit since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine last month.
The Russian foreign ministry confirmed Lavrov had landed in the eastern city of Huangshan, posting photos of delegates descending from a plane and being met by Chinese health officials in hazmat suits.
Lavrov will attend a series of meetings hosted by China to discuss ways to help Afghanistan. Diplomats from the United States and Afghanistan’s neighbours are also expected to attend.
Russia’s assault on Ukraine is likely to loom large over proceedings and comes as the nation continues to refuse to condemn the invasion, lagging behind many other countries in providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
00:43
Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces has provided some more information this morning about their earlier allegation that Russia is merely conducting a “rotation of individual units” and not withdrawing troops as promised.
During Tuesday’s peace talks in Turkey, Russian negotiators promised to cut back some of its military action, however the Ukrainian military has claimed Russian forces continue to “conduct full-scale armed aggression” against the country.
A report published at 6am local time by Ukraine’s ministry of defence reads:
Units of the 4th (Tskhinvali district, South Ossetia) and 7th (Abkhazia) military bases, which are part of the Southern Military District of the Armed Forces of Russian federation, were transferred from the occupied territories of Georgia to the territory of Ukraine in order to recruit the armed forces of the Russian federation.
From the 4th military base, three BTGs with a total number of up to 1,200 Russian and Ossetian servicemen were formed and sent to Ukraine. Two units of the 7th Military Base were formed, which is about 800 people.”
In the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Russian troops continue to “commit illegal acts against the local population” and “loot the homes and apartments of local residents, detain pro-Ukrainian activists and government officials in Ukraine”, officials said.
In the temporarily occupied territory of Luhansk region, Ukrainian military cheifs believe the occupying authorities plan to hold another wave of mobilisation from 1 April and that is it possible that such efforts will be made in the recently occupied territories of the region.
The report continues to claim Russia is having “problems with staffing units” and servicemen of the 26th tank regiment of the 47th tank division have begun “to submit reports requesting to terminate the contract and send them to a permanent location for further service” after initially signing contracts to participate in the war with Ukraine.
Updated
00:21
Russian troop withdrawal designed to ‘mislead’, Ukrainian military says
Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces claim Russian troops continue to withdraw from Kyiv and Chernihiv in the country’s north but described the movement are merely “a rotation of individual units” with the aim to “mislead the military leadership” of Ukraine.
A report released late Tuesday night and published by the ministry of defence reads:
According to some indications, the Russian enemy is regrouping units to focus its main efforts on the east.
At the same time, the so-called ‘withdrawal of troops’ is probably a rotation of individual units and aims to mislead the military leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and create a misconception about the occupiers’ refusal to plan to encircle the city of Kyiv.”
00:12
The extent of the destruction inflicted upon Ukraine’s southern city of Mariupol is seen in the images below.
Smoke billows from high rise apartment buildings across the city and authorities continue to work to stem the damage to city infrastructure and homes.
Ukraine said it feared around 300 people had been killed in one attack alone when the Mariupol theatre was bombed on 16 March.
00:06
Summary
Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you as we continue to report all the latest breaking and developing news from Ukraine.
Here is a comprehensive rundown on where the crisis currently stands after Tuesday’s peace talks made little concrete progress.
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the talks had been “positive but they do not drown out the explosions of Russian shells”, adding that Ukraine had no intention of reducing its military efforts. Joe Biden said: “I don’t read anything into it until I see what their actions are.” The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he had not seen anything indicating that talks were progressing in a “constructive way” and suggested Russian indications of a pullback could be an attempt by Moscow to “deceive people and deflect attention”. “What Russia says, and what Russia does, and we’re focused on the latter.”
- Zelenskiy said Ukrainians are “not naive people” and he saw “no reason to trust the words of certain representatives of a state that continues to fight for our destruction”. He also called for sanctions to be strengthened. “They must be effective. Not just for headlines in the media that sanctions have been imposed, but for real peace. Real.”
- In Ukraine’s latest intelligence report as of 10pm local time, its military claimed Russian troops continue to withdraw from Kyiv and Chernihiv but the movement is merely “a rotation of individual units” and aims to “mislead the military leadership” of Ukraine.
- China’s ambassador to the UN addressed the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, describing a “worrying account of the situation on ground” and called for the protection of civilian lives and respect for international humanitarian law. Dai Bing said increasing sanctions on Russia will “give rise to new humanitarian problems” including hitting global energy, food, economic, trade and financial markets.
- Moscow’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said Russia’s promise to “drastically reduce” military operations does not represent a ceasefire. In an interview with the Russian state-owned Tass news agency, Medinsky said there is still “a long way to go” to reach a mutual agreement with Ukraine.
- Following Russia’s announcement, two senior US officials said the US was seeing Russia beginning to withdraw some of its forces from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in what it believes is a “major” change in Russian strategy. Another US official said any movement of Russian forces from around Kyiv would constitute a “redeployment, not a withdrawal”.
- The UK has also seen signs of “some reduction” in Russian bombardment around Kyiv, Downing Street said. But it insisted the UK will judge tentative steps towards a possible peace deal by actions rather than words. “We don’t want to see anything less than a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory,” the PM’s spokesperson said. The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in its latest updated that “it is almost certain that the Russian offensive has failed in its objective to encircle Kyiv”.
- Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow’s “main goal” in Ukraine was now the “liberation” of the Donbas region. In a sign that Moscow may be switching to more limited objectives after facing fierce Ukrainian resistance in the first month of the war, Shoigu claimed the “main tasks of the first stage of the operation have been completed”.
- A Russian airstrike hit a government building in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv on Tuesday, destroying a large portion of the structure and leaving people trapped under debris. At least 12 people were killed and 33 injured, Ukraine’s emergencies agency said.
- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on Russia and Ukraine to reach a clear agreement for the safe evacuation of civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol and other frontline places as vital supplies run out. “Time is running out” for people in Mariupol, it warned, adding that there was still a lack of “concrete agreements” for the safe passage and evacuations of civilians in the southern Ukrainian city.
- A Ukrainian soldier who told a Russian warship to “go fuck yourself” while defending an island has been awarded for his services, local authorities said. Roman Hrybov was serving on Snake Island – known as Zmiinyi Island in Ukrainian – when it came under Russian air and sea bombardment on 24 February. Ukraine’s defence ministry said Hrybov was released from Russian captivity and is now home in Cherkasy.
- A £38m superyacht owned by an unnamed Russian businessman has been detained in Canary Wharf in London as part of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The vessel, known as Phi, is subject to the first detention of a superyacht in UK waters, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said, and its owner was “We can say the signals we are receiving from the talks are positive but they do not drown out the explosions of Russian shells,” he said.
- Americans may be ‘singled out’ by Russian forces in Ukraine, the US state department said in its latest travel advisory. “There are continued reports of US citizens being singled out and detained by the Russian military in Ukraine and when evacuating by land through Russia-occupied territory or to Russia or Belarus,” it said.
If you have any feedback or tips to share please feel free to get in touch with me via Twitter or email.
www.theguardian.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism