Ukraine: what we know on day five of Russia’s invasion
Dozens kills and hundreds wounded in Russian rocket strikes on Kharkiv, as rouble crashes in wake of global sanctions
Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds more wounded in rocket strikes by Russian forces on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Monday morning, the Ukrainian interior ministry has said.
Talks between Ukraine and Russia got under way on the border with Belarus on Monday morning. Ukraine had agreed to talks with Russia without preconditions", the office of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said.
Recent British intelligence appears to corroborate a recent report from Ukraine's military that Russia had slowed down" its offensive. Britain's defence ministry has said Russia's advance on Kyiv has been slowed by logistical failures and fierce Ukrainian resistance.
The Russian central bank has increased interest rates to 20% from 9.5% after the rouble plunged up to 40% on Monday in the wake of western sanctions.
The EU is expecting Ukraine's application to join the European Union imminently" and officials in Brussels said this will need to be assessed very rapidly by the council and the decision made as to whether to request an urgent opinion from the European Commission".
Residents in Mariupol said the port city on the Sea of Azov was surrounded by Russian forces and under heavy attack on Monday morning.
Amnesty International has condemned Russia's reported use of cluster munitions in Ukraine, saying an attack on a pre-school may constitute a war crime".
Russian invasion forces seized two small cities in south-eastern Ukraine and the area around a nuclear power plant, the Interfax news agency reported on Monday, but ran into stiff resistance elsewhere as Moscow's diplomatic and economic isolation deepened.
The UK government announced a slew of measures to prohibit any UK natural or legal persons from undertaking financial transactions involving the Russian central bank, the Russian national wealth fund, and the country's ministry of finance".
The US stepped up the flow of weapons to Ukraine, announcing on Sunday it would send Stinger missiles as part of a package approved by the White House.
An update from Ukraine's interior ministry late on Sunday night said 352 Ukrainian civilians had so far been killed during Russia's invasion, including 14 children. The ministry said a further 1,684 people, including 116 children, had been wounded.
Blasts were heard in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Meanwhile, about 90 miles (150km) north-east of Kyiv in Chernihiv, a missile reportedly hit a residential building in the centre of the city, causing a fire to break out, the agency added.
About 800 people were arrested as Belarus voted to ditch its non-nuclear status in a referendum that raises the stakes at a time when the country has become a staging ground for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the government said on Monday.
Forty Ukrainian civil society groups have come together to call on the west to establish safe zones for refugees inside Ukraine, and provide technology to help document Russian war crimes as part of a plan to make Vladimir Putin and his inner circle face justice at the international criminal court.
Continue reading...