Russia-Ukraine crisis: top developments today

Here are the top 10 updates from Kyiv and Moscow:

🔴 Ukraine began evacuating civilians from the northeastern city of Sumy and from the town of Irpin near the capital Kyiv Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said. The evacuations began after Russian and Ukrainian officials agreed to establish “humanitarian corridors” to allow civilians out of some towns and cities besieged by Russian forces.

🔴 Around 1.2 million people have fled to Poland since Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24 in what Moscow calls a “special operation”, the Polish Border Guard said on Tuesday. A total of 141,500 people crossed from Ukraine into Poland on Monday, fewer than on Sunday. On Tuesday, 35,300 people entered Poland by 7 am (0600 GMT), 16% fewer than during the first seven hours of Monday.

🔴 A Russian general was killed in the fighting around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which Russian forces have been trying to seize since the invasion began, the Ukrainian military intelligence agency said. It identified him as Maj. Gen. Vitaly Gerasimov, 45, and said he had fought with Russian forces in Syria and Chechnya and had taken part in the seizure of Crimea in 2014.

🔴 The World Bank said its executive board approved a $723 million package of loans and grants for Ukraine. The package includes a $350 million loan supplement to a prior World Bank loan, augmented by about $139 million through guarantees from the Netherlands and Sweden, the bank said in a statement. It also includes $134 million in grants from Britain, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania and Iceland, as well as parallel financing of $100 million from Japan.

🔴 Russia’s Vladimir Putin is a spent force in the world whatever happens in Ukraine, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said Tuesday, predicting the invasion would be the president’s end. “The buck will eventually stop somewhere in the Kremlin … whether that happens next week or next year or next decade is obviously debatable. Whatever … happens, President Putin is a spent force in the world and he is done, his army is done … and he needs to recognise that,” Wallace told Times Radio.

🔴 The board that oversees Arizona’s three public universities on Monday ordered their presidents to sell any Russian investments they hold as quickly as possible because of ongoing war it is waging against Ukraine. The Arizona Board of Regents also voted to exclude Russian investments from the board’s retirement plan.

🔴 Russian aircraft bombed cities in eastern and central Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian officials said. Shelling pounded suburbs of the capital, Kyiv. In Sumy and Okhtyrka, to the east of Kyiv near the Russian border, bombs fell on residential buildings and destroyed a power plant, regional leader Dmytro Zhivitsky said. He said there were dead and wounded but gave no figures.

🔴 After the third attempt to ease the bloodshed at talks in Belarus brought little progress, negotiators warned not to expect the next round to bring a final result. The Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers are expected to meet in Turkey on Thursday.

🔴 Ukraine says its forces have killed more than 11,000 Russian troops. Russia has confirmed about 500 losses. Neither side has disclosed Ukrainian casualties.

🔴 Russia warned oil prices could surge to $300 a barrel and it might close the main gas pipeline to Germany if the West halts oil imports. On Tuesday, Russian natural gas company Gazprom continued gas shipments via Ukraine at usual volumes, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.