A house is on fire following shelling on the town of Irpin, west of Kyiv, Ukraine, March 4, 2022. (AP)Russia Ukraine Crisis Live: Russia’s defence ministry said late on Saturday that it has resumed “offensive actions” in Ukraine after announcing a ceasefire earlier in the day to allow residents of two besieged cities to evacuate. The ministry also said that Russian forces in a wide offensive in Ukraine have taken several towns and shot down four Ukrainian Su-27 Jets, Interfax news agency reported. TASS news agency said that since the start of Russia’s conflict with Ukraine on February 24, Russian forces have destroyed 69 aircraft on the ground and 21 in the air.
Earlier on Saturday, the Russian defense ministry had said in a statement that it had agreed on evacuation routes with Ukrainian forces to allow civilians to leave the strategic port of Mariupol in the southeast and the eastern town of Volnovakha “from 10 am Moscow time” (8 am GMT.) But the ceasefire collapsed later, with the Russian defence ministry saying that the offensive has resumed.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that Moscow would consider any third-party declaration of a no-fly zone over Ukraine as “participation in the armed conflict”. Speaking at a meeting with female pilots on Saturday, Putin said Russia would view “any move in this direction” as an intervention that “will pose a threat to our service members”. “That very second, we will view them as participants of the military conflict, and it would not matter what members they are,” the Russian president said.
A woman reacts as paramedics perform CPR on a girl who was injured during shelling, at city hospital of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, February 27, 2022. The girl did not survive. (AP)
Russian forces have now seized two Ukrainian nuclear power plants and are advancing toward a third, Ukraine's president said during a call with U.S. senators Saturday.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the third plant currently under threat is the Yuzhnoukrainsk nuclear power plant, located 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Mykolaiv, one of several cities the Russians were trying to keep encircled Saturday.
One of the plants under the Russians' control is the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe. The other is Chernobyl, which is not active but is still staffed and maintained. Previous Russian shelling sparked a fire at the Zaporizhzhia plant that was extinguished without a release of radiation. (AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Saturday that Ukrainian statehood is in jeopardy and likened the West’s sanctions on Russia to “declaring war,” while a promised cease-fire in the port city of Mariupol collapsed amid scenes of terror in the besieged town.
With the Kremlin’s rhetoric growing fiercer and a reprieve from fighting dissolving, Russian troops continued to shell encircled cities and the number of Ukrainians forced from their country grew to 1.4 million. (AP)
The United States on Friday defended NATO's decision not to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine, arguing such a measure could cause the conflict to spread to more countries.
"We have a responsibility to ensure the war does not spill over beyond Ukraine ... A no-fly zone could lead to a full-fledged war in Europe," , US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters. (Reuters)
Moscow demanded on Saturday that authorities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania take measures to protect Russia's embassies after a Russian diplomat was attacked in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, the Russian RIA news agency said.
"We are warning Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn that they are responsible for the consequences of the anti-Russian psychosis they have unleashed," the Russian foreign ministry was quoted as saying.
"A Russian diplomat in the Lithuanian capital was attacked with the use of physical force, attempts were made to put pressure on the Ambassador," it added. (Reuters)
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday he expects the results of his discussions with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to be implemented in the coming days, including new sanctions on Russia and more weapons for Ukraine.
Speaking in an online briefing, Kuleba also said it was frustrating that the NATO alliance was refusing to enforce a no fly zone over Ukraine, saying it would lead to more civilian deaths.Blinken and Kuleba met on Ukraine's border with Poland on Saturday to discuss Western efforts to support Ukraine and isolate Russia in hopes of bringing the 10-day war to an end. (Reuters)
Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kremlin to discuss the Ukraine crisis, AFP reported quoting a spokesperson.
Russian Defence Ministry says Russian forces in a wide offensive in Ukraine have taken several towns and shot down four Ukrainian Su-27 Jets, reports Interfax news agency. It said that in an aerial combat near Zhytomyr, about 100 km (62 miles) west of Kyiv, four Ukrainian Su-27 fighter jets had been shot down. TASS news agency said that since the start of Russia's conflict with Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian forces had destroyed 69 aircraft on the ground and 21 in the air. (Reuters)
Russia's defence ministry says it has resumed "offensive actions" in #Ukraine after announcing a ceasefire earlier in the day to allow residents of two besieged cities to evacuate.
Russian forces have taken control of a psychiatric hospital in the town of Borodyanka in Ukraine's Kyiv region, with 670 people inside, the regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba told local media on Saturday.
"Today we do not understand how to evacuate these people, how to help them," Kuleba said. "They are running out of water and medicines," he said. "These are people with certain special needs, they need constant help ... many of them have been bedridden for years." (Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a "desperate plea" for eastern Europe to provide Russian-made aircraft to Ukraine during a call with U.S. senators on Saturday, said the chamber's majority leader, Chuck Schumer. "These planes are very much needed. And I will do all I can to help the administration to facilitate their transfer," Schumer said in a statement. (Reuters)
People with disabilities and injured soldiers walk after crossing the Irpin river on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday (AP photo)
Captured Russian soldiers answer media questions at a press conference in the Interfax news agency in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday (AP photo)
Russian President Vladimir Putin sits in the cockpit of an airplane simulator as he visits Aeroflot Aviation School outside Moscow, Russia, Saturday, March 5, 2022. (, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
As the Russia-Ukraine conflict enters the 10th day, here's a roundup of the key events. Watch here:
Marina Yatsko, left, and her boyfriend Fedor mourn over her 18 month-old son Kirill's lifeless body, killed in shelling, as he lays on a stretcher in a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine on Friday (AP photo)
President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Western sanctions on Russia were akin to a declaration of war and warned that any attempt to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine would be tantamount to entering the conflict.
Putin reiterated that his aims in Ukraine are to defend Russian speaking communities through the "demilitarisation and de-Nazification" of the country so that it became neutral.
Ukraine and Western countries have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for the invasion he launched on Feb. 24 and have imposed a sweeping range of sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow. (Reuters)
As the ninth day of Ukraine’s battle against a Russian invasion dawns, people across Europe are determined to raise awareness and do whatever they can to support the country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that Moscow would consider any third-party declaration of a no-fly zone over Ukraine as “participation in the armed conflict”. Speaking at a meeting with female pilots on Saturday, Putin said Russia would view “any move in this direction” as an intervention that “will pose a threat to our service members”.
“That very second, we will view them as participants of the military conflict, and it would not matter what members they are,” the Russian president said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pushed NATO to impose a no-fly zone over his country, warning that “all the people who die from this day forward will also die because of you” as Russian forces were battering strategic locations in Ukraine.
NATO has said a no-fly zone, which would bar all unauthorised aircraft from flying over Ukraine, could provoke widespread war in Europe with nuclear-armed Russia. (AP)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called another high-level meeting on Saturday evening to discuss the situation in war-hit Ukraine and India's evacuation efforts to bring back its citizens, sources said. Since Sunday, Modi has chaired a number of such meetings.
India on Saturday said its main focus now is on the evacuation of around 700 Indian students stranded in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy which has been witnessing bombings and airstrikes.
At a media briefing, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India hopes to evacuate its citizens from Kharkiv and Pisochyn in the next few hours.
'Our main focus is now on evacuating Indian students from Sumy. We are exploring multiple options for their evacuation,' he said. (PTI)
Italy's public television channel RAI announced Saturday an immediate suspension in reporting from Russia after Moscow backed the imposition of jail terms on media publishing "false information" about the military. (AFP)