Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

Russian forces are deliberately attacking civilians in the besieged city of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials have said.

Oleksiy Arestovych, an advisor to the Ukrainian Presidential Office, said in a briefing on Thursday that while authorities would do everything they could to evacuate the city, Russian troops were “deliberately disrupting the evacuation of civilians.”

He accused Moscow of changing tactics in recent days to terrorize the civilian population.  

Mariupol was one of seven Ukrainian cities to have humanitarian corridors opened on Thursday for the evacuation of civilians and import of vital aid supplies. Previous attempts to evacuate civilians from Mariupol have been halted, with Ukraine accusing Russian forces of violating cease-fire agreements in the city.

Mariupol City Council said on Telegram Thursday that the city was under attack by Russian forces, despite arrangements for evacuations.

“Bombs hit homes,” the council said, adding that the State Technical University and a theater in the city center had also been damaged.

The council added: “Information about the victims is being clarified. Russians are purposefully attacking the civilian population of Mariupol!”

— Chloe Taylor

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that Russia is lying about there being no patients in a maternity hospital hit by missiles.

“Like always, they lie confidently,” he said in a televised address, according to a translation by Reuters. Ukrainian authorities have said three people, including one child, were killed in the attack on the hospital in Mariupol on Wednesday.

Zelenskyy also said that 60,000 civilians had been evacuated from occupied Ukrainian territories the previous day.

— Chloe Taylor

Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba hit back at claims made by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, saying the leadership in Moscow “live in their own reality.”

Sergey Lavrov earlier denied that Russian forces had targeted civilians in the bombing of a children’s hospital and maternity ward, saying hospital patients had been removed from the hospital days ago, despite video evidence showing pregnant women being carried from the hospital.

“Unfortunately, I can confirm that the Russian leadership, including Minister Lavrov, live in their own reality,” Kuleba said.

“In our talks, behind closed doors and in the absence of the media, he told me looking in my eyes that the pictures of pregnant women being taken from under the rubble of the maternity house are fake, that they hit the maternity house as a military target because the Russian military was absolutely sure that it was under the control of Ukrainian army.”

Talks between Russia and Ukraine’s foreign ministers in Turkey on Thursday appear to have ended in failure, with no progress made on establishing a cease-fire or safe passage for civilians trying to flee the besieged city of Mariupol.

The discussions, between Lavrov and Kuleba, lasted just 1.5 hours.

— Matt Clinch

Ukrainian authorities have said that a Russian attack on a children’s hospital in Mariupol has killed three people, including a child.

Asked by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at a press conference on Thursday how Moscow could justify such an attack, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said it was “not the first time we’ve seen shouting in response to so-called atrocities.”

Presenting no evidence for the claim, Lavrov repeated a Kremlin line that the hospital had already been captured by Ukrainian “ultra-radicals.”

Also, despite video evidence to the contrary which showed pregnant women being carried from the hospital, Lavrov said hospital patients had been removed from the hospital days ago.

— Holly Ellyatt

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters that he and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have agreed to continue efforts to resolve the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine.

“I will be ready to meet again in this format if there are prospects for a substantial discussion for seeking solutions,” he said at a press conference following talks with Lavrov in Antalya, Turkey.

“I believe that when two foreign ministers meet, they have a mandate to negotiate issues of peace, a mandate entrusted in them by their leaders, by their parliament, and I am ready to continue this engagement with the purpose of ending the war in Ukraine, stopping the suffering of Ukrainian civilians, and liberating our territories from the Russian occupying force.”

Kuleba said he had done his best during Thursday’s negotiations “to find a diplomatic solution to the humanitarian tragedy,” but it appeared Lavrov was not in a position to agree to a cease-fire.

— Chloe Taylor

Employees at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya and Chornobyl nuclear power plants continue to work “under the barrels of machine guns,” Ukrainian officials have said.

In a Telegram post on Thursday, Ukrainian state-run energy company Energoatom said both plants were under the control of Russian forces.

“Of the four power lines [of] the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant itself, two have already been damaged by the occupiers,” Energoatom said. “If two more are damaged, there will be a catastrophe.”

Last week, a fire broke out at the Zaporizhzhya plant — the largest nuclear power plant in Europe — after Russian shelling.

Energoatom also said Thursday that the Chornobyl nuclear power plant was being used as a military base, and part of the station remained de-energized. “Emergency diesel generators are currently in operation, but not for long,” it said.

The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday that while the disconnection of the Chornobyl plant from the power grid was a violation of a key safety pillar, it currently posed “no critical impact on safety.”

— Chloe Taylor

Three people were killed in the bombing of a children’s hospital in the city of Mariupol on Wednesday, Ukrainian authorities have said.

“As of today, it is known that the terrorist bombing of a children’s hospital in Mariupol by Russian aircraft resulted in 17 people injured (children, women, doctors), three dead, including one child — a girl,” Mariupol City Council said in a Telegram post this morning.

In a video address following the attack on Wednesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the bombing as a war crime.

British Prime Minister described the attack as “depraved,” while White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing on Wednesday that it was a “barbaric use of military force to go after innocent civilians.”

— Chloe Taylor

Asked about Russia’s response to Western sanctions on oil and gas, the country’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow had other buyers for its fuel.

Citing Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who oversees the Russian energy sector, Lavrov told reporters: “We’re not going to try to persuade [the West] to buy oil and gas from us. If they want to replace it that’s fine — we have our sales market elsewhere.”

Lavrov was speaking at a press conference in Antalya, Turkey, following talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.

— Chloe Taylor

Nintendo says it is suspending shipments to Russia “for the foreseeable future,” becoming the latest big brand to join a growing corporate boycott of the country over the Ukraine war.

The Japanese video game giant said it could no longer sell its Switch consoles and other products in Russia due to logistical challenges in shipping its products there.

Nintendo has also decided to postpone the release of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, a military-themed strategy game, “in light of recent world events.”

It comes after Sony’s PlayStation division said it has halted all product sales in Russia.

— Ryan Browne

Russian President Vladimir Putin is open to meeting his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday.

“Putin is not refusing to meet with Zelenskyy, but in order for this to happen we need to do some preliminary work,” Lavrov told a press briefing following talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in the Turkish city of Antalya.

— Chloe Taylor

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has told a press briefing that no progress was made toward achieving a cease-fire in negotiations with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Thursday.

The two ministers met in the Turkish city of Antalya on Thursday for talks on the conflict in Ukraine, marking their first meeting since the Russian invasion of the country on Feb. 24.

— Chloe Taylor

Billionaire Roman Abramovich, the outgoing owner of soccer team Chelsea FC, is among seven Russian oligarchs to be hit by U.K. sanctions on Thursday.

The U.K. government’s new sanctions list includes further members of Putin’s inner circle, such as Oleg Deripaska, Dmitri Lebedev and Igor Sechin.

All seven men will see their assets frozen and travel restricted.

— Karen Gilchrist

More than 2.3 million people have fled the conflict in Ukraine as of March 10, the International Organization for Migration said on Thursday.

The IOM — a U.N. organization — said more than 112,000 of the people who had left Ukraine were third-country nationals.

— Chloe Taylor

A huge Russian military convoy that has been heading toward Kyiv for more than a week has made little progress in reaching the capital, the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense said Thursday.

The convoy has suffered losses at the hands of the Ukrainian armed forces, the ministry added in its daily intelligence update.

Meanwhile, recent days had seen a notable decline in overall Russian air activity above Ukraine, U.K. officials said, noting that this was “likely due to the unexpected effectiveness and endurance of Ukrainian Air Defense forces.”

The U.K. also confirmed that Russia had deployed conscript troops to Ukraine, despite public assurances from Russian President Vladimir Putin that conscripted personnel would not be sent to the country.

“As casualties mount, President Putin will be forced to draw from across the Russian armed forces and other sources to replace his losses,” the intelligence update said.

— Chloe Taylor

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has shared footage of Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba arriving in Turkey, where he will participate in talks with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in the resort city of Antalya.

— Chloe Taylor

Russia said Thursday that it will no longer participate in the Council of Europe, claiming that the EU and NATO were abusing their absolute majority in the group to create a platform for “Western superiority and narcissism.”

The Council of Europe describes itself as the continent’s leading human rights organization. The organization is comprised of 47 countries, including all 27 of the EU’s member states. The majority of NATO’s member countries are also members of the Council of Europe.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that it would cease to take part in the council, claiming that the EU and NATO would continue “the line of destroying the Council of Europe and the common humanitarian legal space in Europe,” Russian state-controlled news agency Tass reported.

“Let them enjoy communicating with each other, without Russia,” the ministry said.

— Chloe Taylor

Oil prices were trading higher on Thursday morning, stabilizing at elevated levels following a dramatic sell-off in the previous session.

International benchmark Brent crude futures were last seen trading at $116.86 a barrel, up around 4.8%, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures stood at $112.61, around 3.5% higher.

The United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday it would call on other members of OPEC+, an influential energy alliance, to boost output given the sanctions on Russian oil over the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei has since sought to temper this message, however, saying via Twitter the country remains committed to the OPEC+ agreement.

Oil prices plunged on Wednesday. Brent futures settled 13% lower at $111.14, registering its biggest one-day drop since April 2020. Brent had climbed to $139 at the start of the week, its highest level since 2008.

WTI futures, meanwhile, tumbled more than 12% to settle at $108.7 per barrel, notching its worst day since Nov. 26. WTI had briefly topped $130 per barrel to hit a 13-year high earlier in the week.

— Sam Meredith

Japanese tech giant Hitachi said on Thursday it was suspending exports to Russia and pausing all manufacturing activities within the country “for the time being.”

Products, services and support for electrical power equipment are “indispensable to the daily lives of people” in Russia will be exempted from the suspension, however.

Hitachi said revenues from the Russian market account for around 0.5% of its consolidated revenues forecast for the financial year ending March 2022.

— Chloe Taylor

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said there will be seven civilian evacuation routes on Thursday.

Six of the routes will take civilians fleeing heavy fighting in Trostyanets, Krasnopillya, Sumy, Mariupol, Volnovakha and Izyum to other parts of the country, while another will transport people from the outskirts of Kyiv into the center of the city.

Many attempts to evacuate civilians have been halted in recent days, with Ukrainian authorities accusing Russian forces of violating cease-fire agreements, attacking the agreed evacuation routes, and only permitting civilians to flee to Russia.

— Chloe Taylor

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has renewed his call for Western allies to create a no-fly zone over the country, saying any further delay will be “too late” to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.

“We are speaking about closing the sky. You can’t decide to close or not to close, you can’t decide,” Zelenskky said in an interview with Sky News.

“Don’t wait [for] me asking you several times, a million times, to close the sky. No. You have to phone us … our people who lost their children and say: ‘Sorry we didn’t do it yesterday, one week ago. We didn’t push Putin, we didn’t speak with him a lot, we didn’t find the dialogue with him. We did nothing.'”

“And it’s true. Yesterday, the world did nothing. I’m sorry but it is true,” Zelenskky said, calling on policymakers to act faster to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

“Close the sky and stop the bombing,” he said.

When asked about Western concerns of a no-fly zone bringing about a direct confrontation with Russia, making the situation even worse, Zelenskky replied: “So, it would be worse for whom? For our families? No, for whom? For them? No, who knows? Nobody knows. But we know that exactly that now is very bad. And in future, it will be too late.”

— Sam Meredith

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is set to meet his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Antalya, Turkey, on Thursday for talks.

The two ministers will hold separate press conferences following the meeting.

— Chloe Taylor

The International Monetary Fund has approved $1.4 billion in emergency funding to support Ukraine’s economy, citing the devastating humanitarian crisis and destruction of infrastructure as a result of Russia’s invasion.

More than 2 million people are estimated to have fled Ukraine since Russia’s onslaught started two weeks ago.

“The Russian military invasion of Ukraine has been responsible for a massive humanitarian and economic crisis,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement.

“The tragic loss of life, huge refugee flows, and immense destruction of infrastructure and productive capacity is causing severe human suffering and will lead to a deep recession this year. Financing needs are large, urgent, and could rise significantly as the war continues,” she added.

Earlier this week, the World Bank approved a package of grants and loans totaling $723 million to Ukraine.

— Sam Meredith