Pope Francis visits Ukrainian children in hospital

Pope Francis has paid a visit to some of the Ukrainian children who escaped the Russian invasion and are currently being treated at the Vatican’s paediatric hospital in Rome.

The Vatican says the Bambino Gesu hospital is currently tending to 19 Ukrainian refugees, and that overall some 50 have passed through in recent weeks.

Some were suffering oncological, neurological and other problems before the war and fled in the early days. Others are being treated for wounds incurred as a result of the invasion.

The Vatican says Francis travelled the short distance up the hill to the hospital on Saturday afternoon. He met with all the young patients in their rooms before returning back to the Vatican.

Francis has spoken out about the “barbarity” of the war and especially the death and injury it has caused Ukrainian children. (AP)

Mariupol: Russians push deeper while evacuations still only 'partly operational'

Russian forces pushed deeper into Ukraine's besieged and battered port city of Mariupol on Saturday. Heavy fighting shut down a major steel plant and local authorities pleaded for more Western help.

“Children, elderly people are dying. The city is destroyed and it is wiped off the face of the earth,” Mariupol police officer Michail Vershnin said from a rubble-strewn street in a video addressed to Western leaders that was authenticated by The Associated Press.

Russian forces have already cut the city off from the Sea of Azov, and its fall would link Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, to territories controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in the east.

Ukrainian and Russian forces battled over the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Vadym Denysenko, adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said Saturday. “One of the largest metallurgical plants in Europe is actually being destroyed,” Denysenko said in televised remarks.

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a televised interview on Saturday that a planned humanitarian corridor to Mariupol was only partially operational, with buses not being allowed through by Russian troops.

She said that overall, Ukraine has evacuated 190,000 civilians from frontline areas via humanitarian corridors since the start of Russia’s invasion. Corridors in the Kyiv and Luhansk regions were functioning on Saturday, she added.

The Donetsk rebel government said over 800 people have been evacuated from Mariupol amid heavy fighting. People have continued to arrive at the settlement of Bezimenne, which has been under control of rebels since 2014.

Evacuees are being housed in one of the schools. One of them, Yevheniy Perov, told the Associated Press what he witnessed in Mariupol.

"No one knew about those green corridors, we were sitting in a basement (in a shelter), there was absolutely no information – which corridor, in which direction, what time, when. There was nothing, that's why there was no question of corridors," Perov said. (AP)

Victory for Putin would bring 'new age of intimidation' — Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a “turning point for the world,” arguing that victory for President Vladimir Putin’s forces would herald “a new age of intimidation.”

Speaking to a Conservative Party conference on Saturday, the British prime minister claimed Putin was “terrified” that the example of a free Ukraine would spark a pro-democracy revolution in Russia.

He said “a victorious Putin will not stop in Ukraine, and the end of freedom in Ukraine will mean the extinction of any hope of freedom in Georgia and then Moldova, it will mean the beginning of a new age of intimidation across eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea.” 

But Johnson came into criticism for some awkward comparisons with British politics, drawing a parallel between Ukrainians' desire for freedom and the British people's vote for Brexit.

"This is an utterly depraved argument," opposition Labour lawmaker Chris Bryant said of Johnson's speech. "Ukraine wants to join the EU. The people of (EU member states) France and Spain are also free."

High jump win shows Ukrainians 'never give up' - Mahuchikh

Having spent three days travelling from war-torn Ukraine, Yaroslava Mahuchikh lifted high jump gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championships on Saturday.

The 20-year-old cleared a world-leading 2.02 metres to add gold in Belgrade to the bronze at the Olympic Games last year and silver at the 2019 World Championships.

Afterwards, Mahuchikh said her triumph shows "Ukrainian people never give up" and that her nation will do "everything" for victory.

Satellite image shows destroyed Mariupol theatre

A satellite image released on Saturday shows the theatre in Mariupol that was destroyed in a Russian airstrike.

The image, made available by Maxar Technologies, reveals significant damage in and around the building.

Hundreds of people were sheltering in the building and its basement when it was hit by an airstrike on Wednesday.

At least 130 people survived, but hundreds more are feared to be still trapped under the rubble.

Cosmonauts' yellow suits nothing to do with Ukraine, says Russia

Russia's space agency on Saturday dismissed Western media reports suggesting Russian cosmonauts joining the International Space Station (ISS) had chosen to wear yellow suits with a blue trim in support of Ukraine, Reuters reports. READ OUR STORY HERE.

"Sometimes yellow is just yellow," Roscosmos' press service said on its Telegram channel.

"The flight suits of the new crew are made in the colours of the emblem of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which all three cosmonauts graduated from ... To see the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is crazy."

Roscosmos Director-General Dmitry Rogozin was more acerbic, saying on his personal Telegram channel that Russian cosmonauts had no sympathy for Ukrainian nationalists.

Putin and Luxembourg's Bettel speak again

Vladimir Putin has spoken on the phone for the second time this week with Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, who tweeted to say things had deteriorated since their first conversation.

“The situation on the ground has worsened, especially in the city of Mariupol. The images that reach us are intolerable," Bettel said. "The goal needs to remain de-escalation, adoption of ceasefire & furthering negotiation processes.”

The Kremlin said Putin "outlined fundamental assessments" of the Russian-Ukrainian talks and complained that Ukrainian missile strikes in the eastern Donbas region were “leading to numerous civilian casualties".

Zelenskyy calls on Swiss to freeze oligarchs' accounts

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on the Swiss government to freeze the bank accounts of all Russian oligarchs.

Zelenskyy spoke via livestream on Saturday to thousands of antiwar protesters in the Swiss city of Bern.

“In your banks are the funds of the people who unleashed this war. Help to fight this. So that their funds are frozen. (...) It would be good to take away those privileges from them,” he said to great applause, as reported by Swiss public broadcaster SRF.

Ukraine calls on China to condemn Russian barbarism

The Ukrainian presidency on Saturday called on China to join the West in "condemning Russian barbarism" in Ukraine.

Mykhaylo Podolyak, a presidential adviser and member of the negotiating team with Russia, tweeted to say that China could be an important part of the global security system "if it makes a right decision to support the civilized countries’ coalition & condemn Russian barbarism".

However, Beijing has so far avoided criticising Moscow. On Saturday Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng criticised the far-reaching Western sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine and said the root cause of the war in Ukraine “lies in the Cold War mentality and power politics”.

Echoing a Kremlin talking point, the Chinese envoy said if NATO's “enlargement goes further, it would be approaching the ‘outskirts of Moscow’ where a missile could hit the Kremlin within seven or eight minutes".

“Pushing a major country, especially a nuclear power, into a corner would entail repercussions too dreadful to contemplate,” he said.

Echoing Vladimir Putin, he said NATO should have been broken up along with the Warsaw Pact after the Cold War. 

In a two-hour phone call with US President Joe Biden on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping failed to give assurances that Beijing would not help Russia militarily with its war in Ukraine. Biden warned of stiff consequences if it did so.

Morawiecki repeats call for total Russia trade ban

Poland’s prime minister has repeated his call for the European Union's executive body to block all trade with Russia and force Moscow to end the war on Ukraine.

Mateusz Morawiecki spoke on Saturday at the Telesystem-Mesko armaments maker in Lubiczow that produces anti-aircraft homing parts that Poland has made available to Ukraine.

“A blockade of sea ports, a ban on entry by Russian ships under Russian flags with Russian cargo into sea ports, but also a ban on trade by land” should be added to sanctions on Russia, he said.

The PM added that cutting Russia completely off sea and land trade with the 27-nation EU “will additionally force Russia to rethink ‘Maybe it’s best to stop this cruel war'".

Morawiecki said he would make the appeal at the next meeting of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body.

His call came the day after he announced a series of measures designed to create an "anti-Putin shield" - intended he said to "de-Russify" the economy, curb inflation, protect jobs and resist Moscow's "gas blackmail".

"We will work to de-Russify the Polish and European economy, because Poland is today at the forefront of all those countries that seek to inspire others to get out of dependence on Russian gas, oil and coal," Mateusz Morawiecki told a press conference on Friday.

(with AP, AFP)

Battles intensify in eastern Ukraine and around Kyiv

There have been more reports of fighting in the southeastern port of Mariupol which has been besieged by Russian troops, penning in hundreds of thousands of civilians in the most appalling conditions as they run out of food and water, and are deprived of heat, electricity and communication.

Ukrainian troops were losing control of the key Azovstal steel plant, now damaged and heavily contested, according to comments from an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister.

“Now there is a fight for Azovstal," Vadym Denysenko said in televised remarks on Saturday. “I can say that we have lost this economic giant. In fact, one of the largest metallurgical plants in Europe is actually being destroyed.”

Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces have fired at eight cities and villages in the eastern Donetsk region, using aviation, rocket and heavy artillery.

Ukraine’s National Police said in a statement on Telegram Saturday that at least 37 residential buildings and infrastructure facilities were damaged; dozens of civilians were killed and injured as a result of the attacks. The Russian military were firing at Mariupol, Avdiivka, Kramatorsk, Pokrovsk, Novoselydivka, Verkhnotoretske, Krymka, and Stepne.

The statement said that “among the civilian objects that Russia destroyed are multistory and private houses, a school, a kindergarten, a museum, a shopping center and administrative buildings.”

Kyiv northwestern suburbs of Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin and Moshchun have also been under fire on Saturday. The Kyiv regional administration reported that the city of Slavutich north of the capital was “completely isolated,” and that Russian military equipment was spotted in the region northeast and east of Kyiv.

A 38-hour curfew was announced in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, to last from 4 p.m. local time on Saturday until 6 a.m. on Monday. Officials said two missile strikes on the city's suburbs a day earlier killed nine people. Local authorities there say they continue to evacuate people from areas occupied by Russian troops.

President Zelenskyy said in his Friday nighttime video address to the nation that more than 9,000 people were able to leave Mariupol over the previous day, and that in all more than 180,000 people have been able to flee through humanitarian corridors. (with AP)

'Dozens killed' in Mykolaiv barracks attack

Dozens of people were killed in a strike on Friday against a military barracks in southern Ukraine, in Mykolaiv, witnesses told AFP on Saturday.

“No less than 200 soldiers slept in the barracks,” according to Maxime, a 22-year-old soldier interviewed on site. "At least 50 bodies have been extracted, but we don't know how many are left under the rubble," continues the young soldier. Evguéniï, another soldier on the spot, estimates that the strikes could have killed 100 people.

The site in northern Mykolaiv was completely devastated after being hit by six rockets on Friday morning.

Russian cosmonauts on ISS mission arrive wearing Ukraine colours

Three Russian cosmonauts on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) emerged from their Soyuz capsule on Friday wearing the colours of the Ukraine flag.

More on that story from David Walsh here:

Russian cosmonauts arrive at ISS in flight suits in Ukraine colours

The mission to the International Space Station is the first since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Russian forces kidnapped journalist, says Ukraine

The office of the Prosecutor General in Ukraine has accused Russian security and military forces of kidnapping a Ukrainian journalist covering the Russian offensive in the east and the south of Ukraine.

In a Facebook statement Saturday, the Prosecutor General’s office alleged that Russia’s Federal Security Service, or the FSB, and the Russian military abducted the journalist -- Victoria Roshchyna -- of Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske on Tuesday in Berdyansk, an occupied port city in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region. The statement didn’t identify the journalist, but went on to say that the reporter's whereabouts are currently unknown and a criminal investigation has been launched.

Hromadske on Friday tweeted that they lost contact with Roshchyna last week.

The FSB and the Russian military haven't yet commented on the allegations. (AP)

Hypersonic missiles: What is Russia's new Ukraine weapon?

The Russian army said on Saturday that it fired hypersonic missiles in Ukraine, the first known use of the new weapon system in a combat environment.

Read our explainer here:

Russia's new Ukraine weapon: What is a hypersonic missile?

Russia's military says it has used hypersonic missiles for the first time ever, during the Ukraine war. But what are the capabilities of this new weapon?

British foreign minister "very skeptical" about Russia's intentions for peace talks

British Foreign Minister Liz Truss said on Saturday she feared peace talks between Russia and Ukraine were just a "smokescreen" used by the Kremlin ahead of a new offensive. 

In an interview with The Times newspaper, Truss said she was "very skeptical" about the talks, saying Russia was using them as a diversion to "regroup" its forces. 

"Their invasion is not going as planned. We don't see any serious Russian troop withdrawals or any serious proposals on the table" she said.

"The Russians have lied and lied again. I fear that the negotiation is another attempt to create a diversion and a smokescreen against the appalling (atrocities)", she added, stressing that "if a country is serious about negotiations, it is not indiscriminately bombing civilians that day."

Several rounds of negotiations between Kiev and Moscow have taken place in person and by videoconference since the Russian invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24. The fourth opened on Monday at the level of delegations negotiating remotely.

New humanitarian exit routes agreed

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced Saturday that 10 humanitarian corridors have been agreed with the Russians.

They include a corridor from the besieged port city of Mariupol on the Black Sea coast, several in the Kyiv region and several more in the Luhansk region.

She also announced plans to deliver humanitarian aid to the city of Kherson, which is currently under control of the Russian forces.

President Zelenskyy said overnight that Russian forces are blockading the largest cities with the goal of creating such miserable conditions that Ukrainians will cooperate. He said the Russians are preventing supplies from reaching surrounded cities in central and southeastern Ukraine.

Satellite images on Friday from Maxar Technologies showed a long line of cars leaving Mariupol as people tried to evacuate. Zelenskyy said more than 9,000 people were able to leave the city in the past day.

Russian military says it used hypersonic weapons in Ukraine

The Russian military reported Saturday that it has used its latest hypersonic missile for the first time in combat.

A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said Kinzhal missiles destroyed an underground warehouse storing Ukrainian missiles and aviation ammunition in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine.

Russia had never previously reported the use of this ballistic missile in the two conflicts where it is belligerent, Ukraine and Syria, although it has been deployed many times in exercises since the first successful test in 2018.

Konashenkov said Russian forces also used the anti-ship Bastion missile system to strike Ukrainian military facilities near the Black Sea port of Odesa. 

UK military: Kremlin 'failing' its objectives

In its latest military intelligence update on Ukraine, the British Ministry of Defence says the Kremlin has so far failed to achieve any of its objectives from the invasion.

Posting online early Saturday morning, the MoD said Russia has been "surprised by the scale and ferocity of Ukrainian resistance".

The ministry says Russian forces are now "pursuing a strategy of attrition" which is "likely to involve the indiscriminate use of firepower" against civilian casualties and destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure.

Read their full thread here: 

Zelenskyy calls for peace talks and demands "territorial integrity" is restored. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for comprehensive peace talks with Moscow to stop its invasion of his homeland, without delay. In a late night video message, he said if the war continued, Russia would take generations to recover from its losses.

"I want everyone to hear me now, especially in Moscow. The time has come for a meeting, it is time to talk," he said early on Saturday. "The time has come to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise, Russia's losses will be such that it will take you several generations to recover."

Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of blockading Ukraine's largest cities to create a “humanitarian catastrophe” with the aim of persuading Ukrainians to cooperate with them. He said Russians were preventing supplies from reaching surrounded cities in the centre and southeast of the country.

“This is a totally deliberate tactic,” Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address to the nation, filmed outside in Kyiv, with the presidential office in the lamplight behind him.

Zelenskyy also said more than 130 survivors have been rescued from the rubble of a theatre in Mariupol, which Ukrainian authorities have accused Moscow of "knowingly" bombing on Wednesday. The president said more than 1,000 people had taken shelter there. There was no confirmation of the number of possible deaths, and rescue efforts were continuing.