Ukraine can ‘absolutely’ win the war, says US

• Evidence of war crimes mounts after invaders forced into a hasty retreat from towns outside Kyiv, as villagers reveal their chilling threats
• Footage captured by a military drone has revealed an explosive battle between a lone Ukrainian tank and a column of Russian armoured vehicles
• Leave now or face death, Donbas residents told as Vladimir Putin looks for a victory in the east
• Elderly Ukrainian woman pulled out alive after house fell on her like pile of matchsticks
• Pressure grows on European countries to end all Kremlin-controlled gas imports, as scale of dependency on Vladimir Putin is revealed
• Russians ‘burning bodies in mobile crematoriums to cover up Mariupol war crimes’
• Trapped in a warzone: surrogate mothers and newborns ensnared in Ukraine’s crisis
• Russian tank 'opens fire on cyclist' in Bucha where bodies later discovered

Three-hundred people have sheltered in a basement for weeks in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine to keep safe. 

They have consumed little food and almost no water, Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko wrote on Twitter. 

The Ukrainian Parliament will appeal to international parliaments to the recognise the alleged war crimes of Russia as genocide.

Furious Russian bloggers have cut up their Chanel bags in protest after the luxury giant shut its stores in Russia and restricted the sales of its products.

Chanel in a statement said it complies with "all laws applicable to our operations and employees worldwide, including trade sanction laws".

Pope Francis has kissed the Ukrainian flag while condemning Russia's war on Ukraine. 

"The latest news about the war in Ukraine, instead of bringing relief and hope, has brought new atrocities, such as the Bucha massacre," he said at an end to a week-long audience in the Vatican.

A week-long curfew will be introduced in the city of Hostomel, in the Kyiv region, from Thursday. 

The curfew will begin on 6am on April 7 and last until 6am on April 14, the head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, Oleksandr Pavliuk said on his Telegram channel.

"Attention! A curfew has been strengthened on the territory of the Hostomel village council. It will last from 06:00 a.m. on April 7 to 06:00 a.m. on April 14," he wrote.

During the curfew, people will be prohibited from staying in the street and other public places, walk and take modes of transport. 

The curfew has been deemed a necessary safety measure while the city is demined.

When the air felt fresh, Tetiana Oleksiienko used to love spending time in her garden. Now, she shakes at the sight of it.

Gone are the apple, cherry and apricot trees that nourished her family. They were all ripped up by the Russian soldiers digging a trench to serve as her grave.

Ms Oleksiienko, 69, hid in a neighbour’s cellar with her daughter and grandchildren when Russian troops invaded Andrivka, a small village 70km outside of Kyiv, more than a month ago.

It was only when hunger forced her to go above ground that she returned to her home to find the soldiers.

“They started digging with shovels and then drove in a tractor,” Ms Oleksiienko told The Telegraph, bursting into tears.

“I asked them: ‘What is this pit in my garden?’ And the soldiers said: ‘This is a cemetery.’ That’s what they said: ‘This is a graveyard for you.’"

Read Danielle Sheridan's full report from Andrivka here

Angry families are to stage a public protest this weekend over 19-day delays to visas to host Ukrainian refugees amid signs that ministers are losing patience with the Home Office.

Within 12 hours, more than 160 families signed up to a Facebook group to support the protest outside Parliament on Saturday morning after being left in the dark over the progress of their applications to host refugees.

Protest organiser Lauren Corbishley, an NHS mental health nurse who applied on March 18 to host a couple who fled Kharkiv with their 17-year-old daughter, said: "I have never done anything like this before in my life, but I am prepared to do it because we have got no answers.

"I've got people messaging me who are feeling depressed, hopeless and anxious. Their mental health is being hammered by these delays."

Read the full story here

US President Joe Biden has accused Russia of committing "major war crimes" in Bucha after hundreds of bodies of civilians were discovered strewn across roads and in mass graves.

Speaking at a trade union conference, Mr Biden said: "A sense of brutality and inhumanity left for all the world to see, unapologetically. There's nothing less happening than major war crimes.

"Responsible nations have to come together to hold these perpetrators accountable."

The mayor of Mariupol has said over 5,000 civilians, including 210 children, have been killed since the start of the Russian invasion.

Vadym Boichenko said on Wednesday that Russian forces had bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death.

Boichenko added that more than 90 per cent of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed by Russian shelling.

The Boston Marathon will not allow Russian and Belarusian athletes who were accepted via open registration and live in their home countries to compete in this month's event, the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) said on Wednesday.

Runners who are Russian or Belarusian citizens but reside outside either country will be permitted to compete but not under the Russian or Belarusian flag.

"We are horrified and outraged by what we have seen and learned from the reporting in Ukraine," BAA President and CEO Tom Grilk said in a statement. "We believe that running is a global sport and, as such, we must do what we can to show our support to the people of Ukraine."

The BAA said it will not recognise country affiliation or the flag of Russia or Belarus at any of its races and events "until further notice".

A total of 4,892 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Wednesday, officials said.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said it was more than the 3,846 who were evacuated on Tuesday.

Residents could be seen standing near the graves of their neighbours and waiting for aid in front of damaged buildings in the Ukrainian town of Hostomel, which was formerly under Russian occupation.

It comes after a Ukrainian official said 400 people were missing from the town on Wednesday.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday that it thought that Ukraine could win the war against Russia, even as US officials speak of the risk of a long and drawn-out conflict.

"Of course they can win this," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told a news briefing.

"The proof is literally in the outcomes that you're seeing everyday... absolutely they can win." 

By James Kilner

Russia's defence ministry has claimed that Ukraine was planning a "false flag" attack on one of its own chemical storage facilities, reviving fears that Moscow could use chemical weapons in the invasion.

Western officials have previously warned that Russia could stage such an attack to justify its own use of chemical substances.

"According to confirmed information, in the city of Pervomaisky, Kharkiv region [northern Ukraine], Ukrainian special services are preparing a major provocation using poisonous substances, " Major General Igor Konashenkov said in comments reported by Russian media.

Pervomaisky, an industrial town of 30,000 people, hosts one of the largest chlorine storage facilities in the former Soviet Union.

Media said that there were 120 tonnes of chlorine stores at the site.

A small number of Ukrainians have been trained in the US on how to operate killer "Switchblade" drones, single-use weapons that fly into their targets and detonate on impact, a senior US defence official said on Wednesday.

There are less than a dozen Ukrainians taking part in Switchblade training, who had all arrived in the US for regular military education programmes prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they added.

"We took advantage of the opportunity to pull them aside for a couple of days and provide them some training, particularly on the Switchblades UAV," the senior US defence official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

Russian strikes on Wednesday killed four people and wounded four others near a humanitarian distribution point in the eastern Ukraine region of Donetsk, the regional governor said.

"In the morning, the enemy cynically fired at civilians of Vugledar who came to receive humanitarian aid," Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Facebook. "Four died and four were wounded as a result of the shelling."

Kyrylenko posted images to his Telegram account showing what appeared to be the inside of a school building with its windows blown in from the strikes and several desks overturned.

Russia said on Wednesday it would take further measures against British media based in the country, after the Foreign Office imposed sanctions on Russian state-controlled news outlets.

The Foreign Secretary announced last week sanctions on Russian state media organisations including RT and Sputnik. Liz Truss said Vladimir Putin's "war on Ukraine is based on a torrent of lies".

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova singled out Truss in a lengthy attack on British "oppression" of Russian media.

"The only thing Liz Truss has achieved as of today... is that corresponding, mirror image, symmetrical measures - call them what you will - have been taken against British media here in Russia. Have been taken and will be taken," Zakharova told a news briefing.

More than 400 people are missing from the former Russian-occupied town of Hostomel, near Kyiv, a Ukrainian official said on Wednesday.

Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine's human rights ombudswoman, said witnesses had claimed some of the missing residents had been killed.

Ms Denisova said: "More than 400 people have gone missing in 35 days of occupation in Hostomel.

"Witnesses say some were killed, but their whereabouts are still unknown."

Kyiv is already investigating other atrocities inflicted on Ukrainian civilians, including in the town of Bucha, where dead bodies were found strewn across the streets and in mass graves.

By James Kilner

An ultra-nationalist politician who has been used to test some of the Kremlin's most extreme policies has died, in a blow for the Putin regime.

Vladimir Zhirinovksy, who died at 75 after being hospitalised with Covid, had been a larger-than-life player on the country's political scene for more than three decades. 

Vladimir Putin led tributes to a man whose nationalist and often bigoted views, once considered extreme, have now become mainstream.

"Vladimir Zhirinovsky was an experienced politician, an energetic person open to communication, a bright speaker and polemicist,” Putin said. "He sincerely strove to contribute to solving the most important national problems."

Zhirinovsky was the head of the Liberal Democratic Party which was set up towards the end of the Soviet Union, allegedly as a KGB project to draw nationalist anger away from the Communist Party.

By Max Stephens

The Twitter account of George Galloway, the former Labour MP, has been marked as Russian state-affiliated media. 

Mr Galloway, who presents the ‘Mother of All Talkshows’ on Radio Sputnik, which is owned by the Kremlin, said he will be taking legal action against Twitter over the label. 

The label forms part of a new attempt by Twitter to curtail the scale of Russian propaganda about Vladimir Putin’s invasion and atrocities in Ukraine. 

Mr Galloway, 67, wrote in a post on Twitter: “Dear @TwitterSupport I am not “Russian State Affiliated media”. I work for NO #Russian media.

“I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.”

President Joe Biden said the US will continue to stand with Ukraine and its people in the face of Russian aggression.

Mr Biden said "Kyiv still stands, and that government [under Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky] still presides", despite increasingly brutal Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilians.

Speaking at the Trade Union National Conference, Mr Biden added: "The United States will continue to stand with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people to fight for freedom.

"If I'm going to war I'm going with you guys".

US President Joe Biden has said that sanctions imposed on Moscow will "stifle Russia's ability to grow for years to come".

Mr Biden announced that he would sign an executive order that bans any new US investment in Russia.

Sanctions have also been imposed on Sberbank and Alfa-Bank, Russia's largest public and private banks, that will make oligarchs unable "to touch any of their money" in the US.

The state-owned Ukrainian Railways said on Wednesday that three rockets had hit a rail station in eastern Ukraine, resulting in multiple casualties and damaging buildings, tracks and rail stock.

"There are casualties," it said in a statement, without providing detail on the number of victims or the location of the attack.

The US announced a string of new sanctions targeting Kremlin officials and their families, including Vladimir Putin’s two daughters.

Mariya Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova, Putin’s adult daughters whose lives are shrouded in secrecy, are on the US’s new list of sanctions, along with Russian Foreign Minister Segei Lavrov’s family members.

President Joe Biden said the new sanctions were in response to atrocities seen in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, where bodies of civilians were strewn across the streets.

"I made clear that Russia would pay a severe and immediate price for its atrocities in Bucha," Mr Biden said on Twitter.

US prosecutors are working with Ukrainian and European officials to gather evidence of possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland said that officials from the justice department met with their counterparts from Europe and Ukraine this week to devise a plan to work together to help collect evidence.

“Today, we are assisting international efforts to identify and hold accountable those responsible for atrocities in Ukraine,” Garland said. “And we will continue to do so.” 

A senior US official has said the White House decided to sanction family members of Russian politicians - including Vladimir Putin's two daughters - because they suspect the Russian President's assets were hidden with close relatives.

The official said: "We believe that many of Putin's assets are hidden with family members, and that’s why we’re targeting them.

"We have reason to believe that Putin, and many of his cronies, and the oligarchs, hide their wealth, hide their assets, with family members that place their assets and their wealth in the US financial system, and also many other parts of the world."

The eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk has reportedly been hit with consistent shelling and rockets.

AFP journalists witnessed one building on fire and civilians running for cover from the shelling.

Regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said on Telegram on Wednesday that 10 buildings had been hit in the strike, as well as a shopping centre and nearby parking garages, which also caught fire.

Among the targets were "not a single strategic, military facility," said Gaiday, the head of the Ukrainian-controlled Lugansk region, which includes Severodonetsk.

Mariupol’s city council has said that the Russian army is using mobile crematoriums to burn the bodies of murdered civilians and destroy evidence of war crimes committed in the besieged port. 

In a statement on Telegram, Mariupol City Council said: “After the widespread international genocide in Bucha, Russia's top leadership ordered the destruction of any evidence of crimes committed by its army in Mariupol.

“They collect and burn the bodies of Mariupol residents murdered and killed as a result of the Russian invasion.

“In addition, all potential witnesses to the occupiers' atrocities are being identified through filtration camps and destroyed.”

The council added that the Russian attack on the city could have resulted in the deaths of “tens of thousands of civilians”.

“The world has not seen the scale of the tragedy in Mariupol since the Nazi concentration camps. The racists turned our whole city into a death camp,” said Vadym Boychenko, the mayor of Mariupol.

The UK has imposed sanctions on Russia's largest bank, Sberbank.

The government has also committed to ending all imports of Russian coal and oil by the end of 2022.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg warned on Wednesday that the war in Ukraine could last "for many months, for even years", because Vladimir Putin had not appeared to drop "his ambition to control the whole of Ukraine".

Mr Stoltenberg said: "We have seen no indication that President Putin has changed his ambition to control the whole of Ukraine and also to rewrite the international order.

"We have to be realistic and realise that this may last for a long time, for many months, for even years. And that's the reason why we need also to be prepared for the long haul, both when it comes to supporting Ukraine, sustaining sanctions and strengthening our defences."

An Irish socialist political party has defended its decision not to applaud following an address from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the houses of the Oireachtas.

People Before Profit said they could not applaud calls for more sanctions because of their effect on ordinary Russian citizens.

Video footage from the Dáil chamber shows members Paul Murphy and Richard Boyd Barrett standing but not clapping following Zelensky's address, in which he had thanked Ireland for supporting sanctions imposed on Moscow.

Mr Murphy told The Irish Times that he and Mr Boyd Barrett had “stood for the people of Ukraine and stand with them in the struggle against the Russian imperialist invasion”.

However, he said: “We can’t applaud calls for more sanctions which are hurting ordinary Russians and only bolstering the Putin regime at home".

Activists in Lithuania have dyed a pond near the country's Russian embassy blood-red in protest at the war in Ukraine.

Lithuanian Olympian Rūta Meilutytė was pictured swimming through the waters.

The Russian foreign ministry said on Wednesday that images of dead bodies and mass graves from the Ukrainian town of Bucha were designed to justify more sanctions against Moscow and to jeopardise peace talks with Kyiv.

The ministry has claimed that the images were staged. Reports from Bucha suggest that civilians were deliberately targeted and murdered while the town was under the control of Russian forces.

"These terrible, criminal fake [images] were published in order to justify another pre-arranged sanctions package, including a large-scale expulsion of diplomats from different countries," Maria Zakharova said.

"And also of course in order to complicate, if not completely disrupt, [peace] talks."

Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels that the 'New Strategic Concept' will be a "roadmap for Nato. How to address a more dangerous world, and how to make sure that we continue to protect and defend all Nato allies.

He said: "In the strategic concept, we need to address the security consequences of Russia’s aggressive actions, the shifting global balance of power, the security consequences of a much stronger China, and the challenges Russia and China are imposing together to a rules based international order of democratic values.

"We will set out the strategy for how to deal with cyber, hybrid, and terrorism, and also the security consequences of climate change".

He added: "Since the invasion [of Ukraine], Allies have stepped up their support. I also expected ministers, when they meet today and tomorrow, will discuss how we can further support Ukraine.

"Allies are providing both anti-tank, anti-air or air defence systems, but also different kinds of advanced weapon systems. and also both light and heavier weapon systems to Ukraine".

GlaxoSmithKline has cut ties with the Russian government following economic sanctions imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the drugmaker's website said on Wednesday.

The company's consumer department has also stopped imports of supplements and vitamins from Russia. 

"We support global sanctions and will comply with them," GSK said in the statement.

"We have taken a precautionary approach to stop, to the fullest extent possible, any direct involvement and support to the Russian government and military." 

Medics risk life and limb to deliver babies during the Russian invasion, while parents wait anxiously at the border to meet newborns, reports Jessica Rawnsley.

Four days after the Russian invasion, Adam and Lara were frantically trying to get into Ukraine. They flew to Poland and managed to flag down a bus to Rava-Ruska, a border town in Lviv Oblast. Then they waited. 

The couple were waiting for Alex Koval, head of the Ukrainian governmental surrogacy department, who had embarked on a perilous 19-hour journey across the war-torn country with their four-day-old baby in tow. On February 24, the first day of the war, hospitals discharged all patients. 

“The doctor called telling me we need to do something with the babies,” Mr Koval says. “We told the parents to get to Poland while we figured out how to bring their baby to them.” 

Surrogate mothers, newborns, and those helping them are ensnared in Ukraine’s escalating humanitarian crisis. Legal and relatively cheap, commercial surrogacy in Ukraine has soared in recent years to become the second most popular destination after the US. 

Read the full story here

Ukraine has urged residents of the country's eastern regions to evacuate "now" or "risk death" due to fears of Russian attacks and advancement.

"The governors of the Kharkiv, Lugansk and Donetsk regions are calling on the population to leave these territories and are doing everything to ensure that the evacuations take place in an organised manner," deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.

The UK's former national security adviser has said he anticipates "pledges of more military support" for Ukraine to come.

Sir Mark Lyall Grant, who was also formerly the UK's permanent representative to the UN, told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme: "I think we will see pledges of more military support of the sort of anti-tank weapons, perhaps also some anti-ship missiles, which haven't so far reached the theatre, and also surface-to-air missiles.

"When it comes to tanks and fighter aircraft... Nato has so far been very reticent, but now that the Czech Republic appears to be deciding to send Russian-made tanks into the theatre, there may be some other Nato members who will press to do that as well".

Sir Mark added: "Certainly, the evidence of war crimes and human rights abuses that have been uncovered in recent days has raised the level of outrage in the West and definitely increased the willingness to consider further supplies of weapons.

“If Ukraine is now going to go on the offensive to try and take back territory that’s being occupied by Russia in the east of the country, they are going to need slightly different type of weapons.”

The German government said that satellite pictures from last month provided strong counter evidence against Russian denials of involvement in civilian deaths in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters that the "evaluation of satellite images" led Berlin to conclude that "Russian declarations" that images of civilian deaths "were posed scenes or that they were not responsible for the murders are in our view not tenable".

Ukrainian officials say hundreds of civilians were found dead in areas vacated by Russian troops and images of bodies in streets sparked global outrage. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the killings as "war crimes" and "genocide".

The Kremlin has denied the accusations of mass killings and claimed the images emerging from Bucha and other towns are fakes produced by Ukrainian forces, or that the deaths occurred after Russian soldiers pulled out.

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that he had talked with Vladimir Putin at length earlier today and asked him to apply a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Mr Orban told a news conference that he had invited Putin for peace talks in Hungary, to be held with the Ukrainian and French presidents as well as the German chancellor.

He said that the Russian President's response was "positive" but that Putin said this would have conditions. 

Nearly 35,000 more Ukrainians fled west in the last 24 hours to escape the Russian war in their country, the UN announced. 

UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said 4,278,789 Ukrainians had fled across the borders since the war began on February 24 - a figure up 34,194 since Tuesday.

The UN's International Organisation for Migration estimates that 7.1 million internally displaced people had fled their homes but were still in Ukraine.

The IOM says that in addition to Ukrainian refugees, more than 206,000 non-Ukrainians living, studying or working in the country have also left.

This means that in total, more than a quarter of the population have been forced to flee their homes.

Britain launched a review of steel tariff quotas for imports from Russia and Belarus to address the risk of a shortage of steel into the UK as a result of sanctions against the two countries over the invasion of Ukraine.

"Reallocating quotas should help keep steel prices down for construction and other domestic industries," Trade Remedies Authority head Oliver Griffiths said in a statement.

Ten high-rise buildings are on fire in the town of Sievierodonetsk in the east of Ukraine after Russian forces shelled the town, the governor of the Luhansk region said in an online post.

He said that there was no information yet on any casualties.

Sievierodonetsk is the temporary headquarters of the regional authorities as Luhansk City has been controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014.

The UN General Assembly will vote tomorrow on suspending Russia from the UN Human Rights Council as punishment for invading Ukraine, the assembly presidency said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Vladimir Putin to immediately end his "destructive war"  and vowed to continue supporting the country in every way possible until the Kremlin had withdrawn its troops.

"Withdraw your troops from Ukraine and until then, we will do everything we can to continue to support Ukraine," he said in the Bundestag lower house of parliament.

Germany is delivering weapons to Ukraine from its army stores that are "rapidly available and effective," he added

"It must be our goal that Russia does not win this war," he said.

Turkey detected a third floating naval mine in its waters in the Black Sea and military diving teams were working on defusing it, the defence ministry said on Wednesday.

The Black Sea is key for shipping grain, oil and oil products. Its waters are shared by Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia and Turkey, as well as Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of laying mines in the Black Sea, and in late March, Turkish and Romanian military diving teams defused stray mines around their waters.

Kyiv's city council said 89 people, including four children, have been killed in the Ukrainian capital since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

A further 398 people have been wounded and 167 residential buildings damaged by Russian strikes, it said, warning residents to continue to follow air raid warnings despite a recent pull-back of Russian forces from the Kyiv region.

"It has become safer in Kyiv, but the threat of air strikes remains," it said.

Russia denies targeting civilians.

Norway has decided to expel three diplomats working at Russia's embassy in Oslo who have conducted activities that are incompatible with their diplomatic status, the Norwegian foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

"It is not by chance that these expulsions take place now," Anniken Huitfeldt, the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement.

"They come at a time when the world is shocked by reports of Russian forces' crimes against civilians, in particular in the town of Bucha outside Kyiv. In this situation we pay particular attention to unwanted Russian activities in Norway," she said.

An International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team has led a convoy of buses and private cars carrying more than 500 people to Zaporizhzhia after the civilians fled the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol on their own.

"This convoy's arrival to Zaporizhzhia is a huge relief for hundreds of people who have suffered immensely and are now in a safer location. It's clear, though, that thousands more civilians trapped inside Mariupol need safe passage out and aid to come in," Pascal Hundt, the ICRC's head of delegation in Ukraine, said in a statement. 

The sight of tied bodies shot at close range in the Ukrainian town of Bucha do not "look far short of genocide,"  Boris Johnson said today.

The deaths in Bucha, outside Kyiv, have triggered a global outcry and pledges of further sanctions against Russia from the West.

"I'm afraid when you look at what's happening in Bucha, the revelations that we are seeing from what Putin has done in Ukraine, which doesn't look far short of genocide to me, it is no wonder that people are responding in the way that they are," the Prime Minister told reporters. 

More than a dozen T-72 tanks as well as BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicles have been loaded on to trains destined for front line combat, reports Jamie Johnson.

The Czech Republic has sent tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, becoming the first Nato country to provide the heavy armour Kyiv has been calling for.

More than a dozen T-72 tanks as well as a number of BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicles have been loaded on to trains destined for Ukraine.

The vehicles will provide much-needed firepower for the Ukrainian army as battles continue to rage across the country.

Read the full story here.

Russian far-right politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, known for provocative stunts and anti-Western tirades that kept him in the public eye for more than three decades, has died after a long and serious illness, the speaker of the Russian parliament said today.

Zhirinovsky, 75, was admitted to hospital earlier this year after contracting Covid, according to Russian media.

Ukraine's central bank has signed a $1 billion hryvnia-dollar swap deal with Poland's central bank, the deputy governor of the National Bank of Ukraine said in an interview with business publication Delo today.

Kateryna Rozhkova was quoted as saying Ukraine has enough funds to cover its needs in the coming months, partly thanks to the $3.3 billion it has received from international lenders since Russia invaded on February 24. 

The Kremlin said that peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv were not progressing as rapidly or energetically as it would like.

Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said work on setting up a new round of talks was under way but that there remained a long road ahead to achieve any progress. 

Russian forces have taken control of 60 per cent of the town of Rubizhne in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region, which has suffered heavy shelling across its territory for the past 24 hours, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said today.

"60 per cent of Rubizhne is controlled by the Russians," Mr Gaidai said in an online post, accusing a former official of assisting the Russian forces by handing over information.

Mr Gaidai said Russian forces had carried out 81 mortar, artillery and rocket strikes across the region over the past day. 

Hungary's gas supply is based on a bilateral contract with a payment obligation to Gazprom due in May, and the solution for this payment is currently being worked out, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said today.

Replying to a question on whether Hungary could pay in roubles for the Russian gas imports, Mr Szijjarto told reporters: "Our first payment obligation is due at the end of May. The technical solution is there to allow us to be able to pay for the gas we have used, and the technical details of this solution are currently being worked out."

China has called reports of civilian deaths in the Ukrainian city of Bucha "deeply disturbing", as international condemnation grows over what Kyiv has described as "genocide" carried out by Russia.

Beijing has refused to condemn Moscow's invasion, now into its fifth week, as it treads a diplomatic tightrope between backing its close ally and maintaining ties with the West.

But when asked about the reported discovery of dozens of bodies in mass graves or littering the streets in Bucha over the weekend, China said the "reports and images of civilian deaths in Bucha are deeply disturbing."

Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said any "accusations should be based on facts," adding that the humanitarian situation should not be "politicised".

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner wants Europe's biggest economy to stop imports of Russian oil and gas as soon as possible, but it is not feasible immediately, he told the Die Zeit newspaper.

"If I followed my heart, there would be an immediate embargo on everything," Mr Lindner was quoted as saying, adding there could be no normal economic relations with a Russia whose government was waging a criminal war against Ukraine.

"That is why Germany will give up Russian oil and gas," he said, adding, however, that such a move would risk German economic and social stability.

"We can't be responsible for that," he said.

The governor of Ukraine's Donetsk region said at least two civilians were killed and five wounded today when Russian artillery fire struck a humanitarian aid distribution point in the town of Vuhledar.

In an online post, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko shared photos of the alleged attack which showed two women stretched out on the ground, another person with serious wound to the leg and another person with a bloodied leg being helped into a rescue vehicle.

Russia denies targeting civilians. 

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, condemned hesitancy in Europe over barring Russian energy imports, arguing some leaders were more concerned with business losses than with war crimes.

He told the Irish Parliament: "Now when we're hearing new rhetoric about the sanctions against Russian opposition, I can't tolerate any indecisiveness after everything that we have gone through in Ukraine, after everything that Russian troops have done.

"Today, when the whole world knows about the crimes against our people, we still have to convince even some of the European companies to abandon Russian markets, we still have to convince Russia of foreign politicians that we need to cut any ties of global banks of Russian banks with the global financial system.

"We still have to convince Europe that Russian oil cannot feed Russian military machinery with new sources of funding."

Greece will ask 12 Russian diplomats to leave the country in reaction to the war in Ukraine, declaring them "personae non-gratae", the foreign ministry said today.

The Greek foreign ministry's general secretary has informed the Russian ambassador of the decision. The Russian diplomats were not acting in accordance with international rules, a foreign ministry official said.

"Russia will give an appropriate response," the Russian news agency RIA said, citing a foreign ministry spokesman.

Italy, Sweden, Spain and Denmark announced similar moves this week.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, has said that Russia is using hunger as a weapon in its war against his country.

Addressing a joint sitting of the Irish Parliament via a translator, he said: "This night, our territory was again hit by Russian missiles.

"They are destroying things that are sustaining livelihoods to people.

"They also have blocked all of our sea ports, together with the vessels that had already agricultural cargoes for exports.

"Why are they doing this? Because for them hunger is a weapon against us, ordinary people as an instrument of domination.

"Ukraine is one of the leading food-supplying country in the world with exports.

"This is not just about the deficit and the threat of hunger.

"There will be a shortage of food and the prices will go up, and this is reality for the millions of people who are hungry, and it will be more difficult for them to feed their families."

The EU wants the war in Ukraine to end as soon as possible, but how that happens is important too, its chief diplomat said on Wednesday, calling for the bloc to send more arms to Kyiv.

"We want it to end as soon as possible, but not in any way," Josep Borrell told the European Parliament.

"Because if we're going to have a destroyed country that has been dismembered territorially and neutralised, with millions of people in exile, and millions of people dead, then no, we don't want this war to end like this," he said.

"That is why we have to continue arming Ukraine... More weapons, that is what the Ukrainians expect of us."

Mr Borrell noted that continued EU purchases of Russian oil and gas gave Russia many times more money than the financial aid the bloc has provided to Ukraine.

"We have given Ukraine 1 billion euros... but a billion euros is what we pay Putin every day for the energy he provides us," Mr Borrell added.

India's foreign minister said New Delhi is working to stabilise economic transactions with Russia, a day after India condemned killings of civilians in Ukraine and called for an independent probe.

S.Jaishankar told Indian lawmakers that Russia continues to be a critical economic partner and efforts were underway to "stabilise economic transactions between India and Russia."

Russia is India's main supplier of defence hardware but overall annual trade is small, averaging about $9 billion in the past few years, mainly consisting of fertiliser and oil.

Official sources have earlier stated that Indian government has been looking to establish a rupee-rouble trade system.

The website of Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russian state gas giant Gazprom, went down after an apparent hack, in what looked like the latest attack on government-linked sites following Russia's actions in Ukraine.

The website briefly showed a statement purporting to be from Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Miller last month urged the gas giant's 500,000 employees to rally around Putin to preserve Russia as a great power in the face of foreign hostility.

The statement attributed to him on what looked like a hacked version of the site cited him as making critical comments about Russia's decision to send tens of thousands of troops into neighbouring Ukraine, where thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed.

The website stopped working soon afterwards.

"The information published on the site on the morning of April 6 ... is not true and cannot be regarded as an official statement of the company's representatives or shareholders," Gazprom Neft said.

Ukraine’s gas transit operator has suffered damages totalling hundreds of millions of euros since Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, its head said today.

Sergiy Makogon said on Facebook that the company continued to distribute gas to Ukrainian consumers although three main gas pipelines had been damaged, two gas distribution stations had been destroyed, 48 ​​gas distribution stations had stopped operations and four compressor stations had been seized by Russian forces.

Ukraine's military said it had no information about an incident in which a Russian regional official said border guards in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine had come under fire yesterday.

"We do not have such information," a spokesman for the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said in response to a question from Reuters about the Russian regional official's comments.

The European Union will put more sanctions against Russia on top of the latest package announced yesterday, likely including measures against imports of Russian oil, the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said today.

"These sanctions will not be our last sanctions," she told the European Parliament in a presentation of the latest sanctions package that includes a ban on buying Russian coal.

"Now we have to look into oil and revenues the Russia gets from fossil fuels," she said. 

Pope Francis condemned massacres in Bucha and held up a Ukrainian flag that was sent to him from the town where it was reported that a mass grave and other signs of executions were found.

"Recent news from the war in Ukraine, instead of bringing relief and hope, brought new atrocities, such as the massacre of Bucha," he said at the end of his weekly audience.

"Cruelty that is increasingly horrendous, even against civilians, defenceless women and children. They are victims whose innocent blood cries out up to heaven and implores: 'Stop this war!'" he said.

The Kremlin said Western allegations that Russian forces committed war crimes by executing civilians in Bucha were a "monstrous forgery" aimed at denigrating the Russian army. 

Turkey has moved its embassy in Ukraine back to Kyiv after evacuating its staff last month for security concerns.

The advance of Russian forces towards Kyiv had forced Turkey last month to relocate its embassy to Chernivtsi near the Romanian border.

"We had shifted for a temporary period of time our activities to the city of Chernivtsi that has become our logistics centre," the embassy tweeted.

"As of today (Tuesday) we have returned to Kyiv, our home."

Russian forces struck a fuel depot near the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro overnight, regional authorities said today, hitting an area that has avoided the brunt of fighting.

"The night was alarming and difficult. The enemy attacked our region from the air and hit an oil depot and a factory. The oil depot with fuel was destroyed," the region's governor, Valentin Reznitchenko, said in a statement on social media.

He said that no one was wounded in the attack and that firefighters fought for eight hours to extinguish the flames.

The head of the regional council, Mykola Lukashuk, said the Russian strikes occurred late on Tuesday in Novomoskovsk, about 16 miles from Dnipro, describing the attacks as "cynical" in a region with "no Ukrainian soldiers".

Moscow will fight attempts to seize Russian property abroad in courts around the world, former president Dmitry Medvedev said in a post on Telegram today.

"Opponents of Russia... should understand that they will face a large number of cases in courts. Both in the national courts of the United States and Europe and in international courts," said Mr Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council.

Ukraine will try to evacuate trapped civilians through 11 humanitarian corridors today but people trying to leave the besieged city of Mariupol will have to use their own vehicles, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

Efforts to get convoys of buses into the southern port city to evacuate tens of thousands of residents who are trapped there have repeatedly failed since Russian forces encircled Mariupol.

The Dutch government said it is preventing 14 yachts from leaving the country due to sanctions on Russia, including 12 that were under construction for Russian owners.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the statement in a letter to parliament, updating lawmakers on the enforcement of sanctions.

Yacht building is a major industry in the Netherlands. 

Authorities in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk hope to evacuate civilians through five "humanitarian corridors" today and urged residents to get out "while it is safe."

Ukraine has said Russian troops that invaded on February 24 are regrouping and preparing for a new offensive in the Donbas area, which includes Luhansk.

"We will take everyone out if the Russians allow us to get to the meeting places (for evacuation). Because, as you can see, they don't always observe ceasefires," the Luhansk region governor, Serhiy Gaidai, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

"I appeal to every resident of the Luhansk region - evacuate while it is safe ... While there are buses and trains - take this opportunity. "

The world must act to stop the mass murder in Ukraine, Sajid Javid said this morning. "This is mass murder on an unprecedented scale in Europe. We haven't seen the likes of this I think since 1995," he told BBC television.

"I don't want to be commemorating another genocide in Europe years from now. We have the power, the world has the power to stop this, and it must act," the Health Secretary added.

A Russian regional official said that border guards in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine had come under fire.

"Yesterday, on April 5, they tried to fire mortars at the position of our border guards in the Sudzhansky district," said Roman Starovoit, the governor of the Kursk region. "Russian border guards returned fire... There were no casualties or damage on our side."

Russia last week accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out an air strike against a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine, but a senior Ukrainian official denied responsibility.

Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom continued to supply natural gas to Europe via Ukraine today in line with requests from European consumers.

Requests stood at 108.4 million cubic metres for April 6, similar to volumes requested on the previous day, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the operator of Ukraine's gas pipelines.

Hungary's foreign ministry has summoned Ukraine's ambassador over what it called his offensive statements on Hungary's stance regarding the war.

"It is time for Ukrainian leaders to stop their insults directed at Hungary and acknowledge the will of the Hungarian people," said Peter Szijjarto, Hungary's Foreign Minister, referring to a landslide win by the ruling party in Sunday's elections.

A car crashed into the gate of the Russian Embassy in the Romanian capital early on Wednesday, bursting into flames and killing the driver, police said.

The sedan rammed into the gate at about 6am but it did not enter the Bucharest embassy compound.

Video of the aftermath showed the car engulfed in flames as security personnel ran through the area.

According to police, firefighters who arrived at the scene were able to put the fire out but the driver died at the scene.

There was no immediate information on a possible motive or other details.

Heavy fighting and Russian air strikes continue in the encircled Ukrainian city of Mariupol, British military intelligence said on Wednesday.

"The humanitarian situation in the city is worsening," the defence ministry said.

"Most of the 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water.

"Russian forces have prevented humanitarian access, likely to pressure defenders to surrender."

Police and other investigators walked the silent streets of ruined towns around Ukraine's capital, documenting widespread killings of unarmed civilians and other alleged war crimes by Russian forces that could draw tough new Western sanctions as soon as Wednesday.

While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky kept up demands for war-crimes trials for Russian troops and their leaders, he and others increasingly warn that the Russians are regrouping for a new assault on Ukraine's east and south.

So far, Ukrainian forces are holding back Russian troops trying to push into the country's east, but they remain outnumbered in both troops and equipment, Mr Zelensky said in a video address to his country late on Tuesday.

"But we don't have a choice - the fate of our land and of our people is being decided," he said.

"We know what we are fighting for. And we will do everything to win."

Filmmaker and Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn says "no one on the planet has been tested in leadership" like Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky during this conflict.

Of Mr Zelensky's leadership, Penn said: "I don't know that there's a person on earth that could know that they were born for such a day, that they could rise to it.

"In him I saw something that I've never seen before in my lifetime... this extraordinary courage was in his eyes.

"No one on the planet has been tested in leadership like this one human being."

Penn declined to give his thoughts on what "direct action" should be taken against Russian leader Vladimir Putin, but said: "If there is a God, there will be vengeance beyond all possible comprehension."

Actor Sean Penn says Ukraine will win the war with Russia but that the cost of victory remains unclear.

Penn, who has been in and out of Ukraine while making a documentary about the Russian invasion, appeared on Fox News programme Hannity on Tuesday evening.

"I've never felt this way about Ukraine or about where our country is, and what I experienced emotionally in Ukraine," he told host Sean Hannity.

"We all talk about how divided things are here, but when you step into a country of such incredible unity, you realise what we've all been missing.

"These people are fighting for the very dreams that are the aspirations of all of us Americans."

Penn said: "It is clear to me, the Ukrainians will win this, the question is at what cost.

"The Ukrainians are fighting to win and they're fighting to win for the very thing we're able to do right now, to be free, to dream."

The United States and its allies on Wednesday prepared new sanctions on Moscow over civilian killings in northern Ukraine, which President Volodymyr Zelensky described as "war crimes" demanding commensurate punishment.

Western sanctions on Russia over its nearly six-week invasion of its neighbour gained new impetus this week after dead civilians shot at close range were discovered in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, seized back from Russian forces.

Russia denied targeting civilians in Bucha and described evidence presented as a "monstrous forgery" staged by the West to discredit it.

New sanctions set to be unveiled on Wednesday are in part a response to Bucha, the White House said.

The measures, coordinated between Washington, Group of Seven advanced economies and the European Union, will target Russian banks and officials and ban new investment in Russia, the White House said.

The US and its allies fail to understand that from President Vladimir Putin’s perspective, they are already at war with Russia, said Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled former head of Yukos Oil who was once the country’s richest person. 

With the US and major powers ramping up sanctions on Moscow, supplying weapons to Kyiv, and training Ukraine’s military, Putin views his nation as essentially being at war with America and Europe on Ukrainian soil, Mr Khodorkovsky told Bloomberg.

Western arguments drawing a hard line between conflict on Ukrainian land and the spread of war into Nato members’ territory are a nuance that means little to Putin, said Mr Khodorkovsky, whose falling out with the Russian leader in the early 2000s led to him spending nearly a decade in prison before going into exile. 

“Putin has said from the very beginning that this war includes them,” said Khodorkovsky, 58.

Putin “thinks Nato is weak and that they will not defend the Baltics” if Russia attacked those nations, all former members of the Soviet Union. If that plays out, he said Putin believes “Nato will collapse and that means that American” global influence will plummet.

Twitter has announced it is introducing new measures against Russian government accounts to reduce the impact of official propaganda on the social network.

The official accounts will no longer be "recommended" to Twitter users across all categories of the app, including in searches, the platform said.

The official English account of Russian President Vladimir Putin has 1.7 million followers.

The Californian company, like its rival Meta - parent company of Facebook and Instagram - had already blocked the accounts of the Russian state-run media RT and Sputnik in the EU.

Moscow responded by restricting access to Twitter in the country and blocking Facebook and Instagram, AFP reported.

"We will not amplify or recommend government accounts belonging to states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict - whether Twitter is blocked in that country or not," Twitter said.

"When a government blocks or limits access to online services within their state, undercutting the public's voice and ability to freely access information, but continues to use online services for their own communications, a severe information imbalance is created."

American microchip maker Intel Corp is suspending all business operations in Russia, effective immediately.

Intel said it had implemented business continuity measures to minimise disruption to its global operations.

"Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia's war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace," it said.

 The United States has announced it will provide an additional $100 million (£76 million) in security assistance to Ukraine.

The assistance includes anti-armour systems, Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, said.

"I have authorised, pursuant to a delegation from the President earlier today, the immediate drawdown of security assistance valued at up to $100 million to meet Ukraine's urgent need for additional anti-armour systems," Mr Blinken said.

Boris Johnson has told Russians to download software to allow them to find out the truth about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mason Boycott-Owen writes.

In a video message posted to social media directed at the Russian population, the Prime Minister said that they only needed a VPN connection to access independent information from around the world.

Speaking in Russian, Mr Johnson said: “The Russian people deserve the truth, you deserve the facts.

“Your president stands accused of committing war crimes. But I cannot believe he’s acting in your name.”

Read more: Boris Johnson tells Russians: Use a VPN to see truth of Vladimir Putin’s war crimes

• Volodymyr Zelensky has said the United Nations should be dissolved if it cannot rein in Russia, as he called for Nuremberg-style trials for Kremlin leaders

• Russia had been allowed to commit the “most terrible war crimes we have seen since the Second World War”, Mr Zelensky said, “sowing death” and acting like a “coloniser from ancient times”

• Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said the West was trying to derail peace negotiations by whipping up “hysteria” over Bucha

• The EU is expected to approve a fifth round of sanctions against Moscow on Wednesday, including a ban on Russian coal imports - the first such measure against Kremlin-controlled energy. It may also approve asset freezes for Vladimir Putin’s two daughters

• Western sanctions were having a “crippling impact” and were “pushing the Russian economy back into the Soviet era”, Liz Truss said during a visit to Poland

• Boris Johnson has urged Russian citizens to download VPNs - which allow access to the internet outside local censorship - to discover for themselves how Putin has been committing war crimes

• Israel, which has been restrained in its criticism of Russia, has also condemned Moscow for “war crimes”

• A “tag-team” of drones could soon be deployed for the first time in a battlefield to help Ukraine destroy Russian artillery

• The war in Ukraine is entering a “crucial phase” as Russia concentrates on the Donbas, the head of Nato has said, as defence experts suggest it could be weeks before Russia is ready to fight again