Kharkiv’s mayor has said the city, Ukraine’s second largest, is not going to surrender to Russian forces and that the city is under regular rocket and air strikes from the Russian army.

Mayor Igor Terekhov’s comments, reported by Reuters, come after earlier reports that Russian paratroopers had landed in the northeastern Ukrainian city.

Kharkiv’s regional governor Oleg Synegubov said at least 21 people were killed and 112 wounded in shelling of the city in the last 24 hours, Reuters reported.

Ukraine’s emergency services have said on Facebook that the city’s National Police Department building has been shelled and that nearby buildings have been damaged. The services said four people had died in Wednesday morning’s shelling.

— Holly Ellyatt

Defenses are being mounted around Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, a Ukrainian lawmaker told CNBC on Wednesday, amid fears that Russia could soon launch a large-scale attack on the city.

“We are putting up different defenses around Kyiv,” Ukrainian MP Vadym Halaichuk said Wednesday morning, explaining that the country’s Territorial Defense Forces, largely made up of volunteers, “are becoming the back bone of the city defense line.”

Recent resistance in northern parts of the city had shown volunteer defense forces to be a “very effective” way of defending the city and the country, he said.

“People rose up, the Russians did not expect it, and the Blitzkrieg [a rapid military strike] that Putin planned did not happen,” he said. Halaichuk added that he believed that the Russian president’s hopes to regain control and influence over Ukraine “in some sort of Soviet Union structure” is “completely bust.”

There are widespread concerns that Russian forces will soon arrive to the north of Kyiv as a massive convoy of Russian military vehicles has been traveling slowly toward the city.

It’s uncertain how far the convoy is currently away from the city on Wednesday and there have been reports that it has faced logistical challenges.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russian forces have claimed they have entered the city of Kherson in southwestern Ukraine which, if confirmed, would represent a major victory for Moscow.

Russia’s defense ministry issued a Facebook statement Wednesday morning, saying its forces had taken Kherson’s center “under full control” and adding that “civil infrastructure, life support facilities for the population and urban transport operate on a daily basis. The city does not experience shortages in food and essential goods.”

It said negotiations are ongoing between the Russian command and local officials “to address issues of maintaining the functioning of social infrastructure facilities, ensuring law and order and the safety of the population.”

Ukrainian officials have not yet confirmed Russia’s claims to have taken control of Kherson and Kherson’s mayor had said earlier this morning that the city “needed a miracle” after Russian troops reportedly surrounded the city.

“It’s hard to call this morning good, but let’s try. We are still Ukraine. Still persistent. But already very much in smoke,” Ihor Kolykhaev, mayor of Kherson, said, according to a NBC News translation.

“Last night, when my team and I were in the city hall, the building was shelled. Everyone is alive. But I ask you again: do not leave the house. Do not provoke shooting with your actions and behavior. We are in a very difficult situation, we do not need to aggravate it.”

“Today I will work to find a way to collect the dead, how to restore light, gas, water and heat where it is damaged. But I warn you: to fulfil these tasks today is to perform a miracle. We are all waiting for a miracle now. We need it,” he said.

According to Ukrainan officials, and confirmed by the Russians and U.K. defense department, the port city of Maripol experienced heavy shelling from Russia.

“We are fighting, we are not ceasing to defend our motherland,” Mariupol’s mayor Vadym Boichenko said live on Ukrainian TV, Reuters reported.

— Holly Ellyatt

Oil prices surged during Asia afternoon trade as markets were roiled by concerns over supply, amid the Russia-Ukraine war. At one point, both Brent crude futures and U.S. crude soared nearly 8% higher.

Brent last pared some losses, jumping 6.88% higher to $112.19 per barrel. It briefly touched $113.02 per barrel — a level not seen since Dec. 2013, according to data from Refinitiv Eikon.

U.S. crude futures also saw big gains, last trading 6.98% higher at $110.63 per barrel. It had risen as high as $111.50, it’s highest since May 2011, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

— Eustance Huang

In its latest intelligence update on the crisis in Ukraine, the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said Wednesday that Russian forces have seen slow progress in their military assault on Ukraine in the last 24 hours.

Posting an update on Twitter, the MoD said “while Russian forces have reportedly moved into the centre of Kherson in the south, overall gains across axes have been limited in the past 24 hours.”

Slow progress in Russia’s advance was probably due to “a combination of ongoing logistical difficulties and strong Ukrainian resistance.”

The ministry noted that heavy Russian artillery and air strikes have continued to target built-up areas, primarily focused on the cities of Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mariupol and Chernihiv.

— Holly Ellyatt

The next phase of the war in Ukraine is likely to exact an awful cost as Russia turns to bigger, more indiscriminate weapons to bombard cities and prepares for brutal urban fighting.

If Russian troops manage to encircle Kyiv, they are likely to use artillery, rockets and similar weapons on the city, retired U.S. Army Col. Jack Jacobs told CNBC.

Such an approach is one the Russians “didn’t want to do, because they wanted to take the city intact,” Jacobs said. Regardless, they’ll use rockets, “artillery, missiles and other indirect fire in order to subdue the Ukrainians in the city. And then try to move in.”

Indirect fire refers to weapons that don’t require a direct line of sight on the target. Such weapons, such as artillery, can used in large numbers to destroy large areas.

But such a fight is the one Ukrainians have been preparing for.

The Ukrainians “have known from very beginning that ultimately, it may come down to their ability to destroy Russian forces inside the built-up areas,” said Jacobs, who experienced urban fighting as an officer in the Vietnam War.

NBC News reported earlier that Russian troops have already begun shelling Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city.

Western sanctions on Russia have not been severe enough, according to Natalie Jaresko, who previously served as finance minister of Ukraine.

“Sanctions have not been deep enough and not broad enough,” she told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Wednesday.

She suggested that all Russian and Belarusian state banks should be sanctioned, instead of only selected ones.

“We did a very good job with the central bank of Russia — which is why I think we’re seeing the reaction that we’re seeing — but I think that we need to go beyond that to the energy companies,” said Jaresko, who is now executive director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico.

“We need to stop financing the war,” she said, pointing to the millions of dollars worth of goods that the U.S., U.K. and Europe import from Russia.

“That money is directly or indirectly financing the bombs that are falling on the heads of every Ukrainian today,” she said.

Sanctions are meant to convince the people of Russia, including the elites, to get President Vladimir Putin to stop the war, she added.

“He has it in his control, he can stop,” she said.

— Abigail Ng

Ukraine’s government has raised about $270 million from war bonds it issued Tuesday.

“The proceeds from the bonds will be used to meet the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and to ensure the uninterrupted provision of the state’s financial needs under the war,” its finance ministry tweeted.

Ukraine’s finance ministry said the bonds have a yield of 11% with a tenure of one year.

Ukraine has sought to raise funds through multiple ways, such as accepting funds through crypto wallets, as its conflict with Russia deepens.

— Weizhen Tan, Christine Wang

Biden rallied allies Tuesday night and praised joint economic measures imposed on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s economy.

“We are cutting off Russia’s largest banks from the international financial system,” Biden said. “Putin is now isolated from the world more than ever,” he added, referencing retaliatory measures taken for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

Biden said that the U.S. and its allies were making “Putin’s $630 billion war fund worthless,” by preventing Russia’s central bank from defending the Russian ruble.

“We are choking off Russia’s access to technology that will sap its economic strength and weaken its military for years to come,” he added.

— Amanda Macias

Residents stay in a bomb shelter after recent shellings in the separatist-controlled settlements in Mykolayivka (Nikolayevka) and Bugas in the Donetsk region (DPR) of Ukraine on March 1.