March 21, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Two children are in a critical condition after cars carrying families came under artillery fire on the road between Mariupol and Zaporizhzhia, a regional official in eastern Ukraine said.

Oleksander Starukh reported heavy shelling around the frontline separating Russian and Ukrainian forces Monday, in a statement on his Telegram channel. 

Three children from Mariupol who had escaped the besieged city with their family came under fire as they were traveling through Polohivsky district, Starukh said, leaving one child in a critical condition. 

A second child traveling with their family is also in a critical condition after their car came under fire in the village of Kamianske. 

A man looks at a shopping mall following an explosion in Kyiv on March 21.

Nelson Mandela was once asked why he still had relationships with, among others, Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat, the Cuban and Palestinian leaders who had been branded terrorists by Western powers. The revered South African statesman replied that it was a mistake “to think that their enemies should be our enemies.” 

This stance has largely typified some African nations’ response to the Russia-Ukraine war. Across the continent, many appear hesitant to risk their own security, foreign investment and trade by backing one side in this conflict.

While there has been widespread condemnation of the attacks on Ukrainian civilians and their own citizens fleeing the warzone — from countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya — there has been a much more muted response from some key African nations.

Countries on the continent find themselves in a delicate position and will not want to get drawn into proxy battles, said Remi Adekoya, associate lecturer at England’s University of York.

One influential voice that has made it clear he will not make an enemy out of Russian leader Vladimir Putin is South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

While addressing his country’s parliament Thursday, he said: “Our position is very clear … there are those who are insisting that we should take a very adversarial stance and position against, say Russia. And the approach that we have chosen to take … is we are insisting that there should be dialogue.”

After initially releasing a statement calling for Russia to immediately pull its forces out of Ukraine, South Africa has since laid the blame for the war directly at NATO’s doorstep for considering Ukraine’s membership into the military alliance, which Russia is against.

“The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less instability in the region,” Ramaphosa said in parliament Thursday.

Keep reading here.

Twenty-one Ukrainian rescue workers have been killed and 47 have been injured so far due to shelling by Russian troops, said the deputy head of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, Roman Prymush, during a news briefing with Ukrinform on Monday. 

He noted that the detention of rescuers by Russian forces is also a violation of the Geneva Convention. 

Prymush added it will be the subject of proceedings in international courts, which are already underway.

When Serhii woke up to news reports that a bomb had flattened Mariupol’s Drama Theater, where hundreds of people had been sheltering, he couldn’t breathe.

His wife and their two daughters were inside.

A day before the attack, the 56-year-old editor, who lives in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, received a panicked call from his 30-year-old daughter.

He hadn’t heard from her since March 1, when Russian forces intensified their siege of Mariupol, the strategic port city, launching a relentless barrage of rockets and bombs from land, sky and sea.

As electricity and internet service went out, Mariupol was largely cut off from the outside world. Serhii, who asked that only his first name be used for security reasons, waited desperately for any update from his girls.

Click here to read more on the bombing of Mariupol:

This satellite image shows a damaged theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, which was bombed March 16, 2022.

Related article They thought they would be safe in the theater. Then it was bombed

Three journalists, along with a retired newspaper publisher and his family, were abducted Monday morning by Russian forces and held for several hours before being released, according to Ukraine’s national journalists’ union. 

The four – former publisher Mykhailo Kumok, editor Yevhenia Boryan and reporters Yulia Olkhovska and Lyubov Chaika – are all associated with the Melitopolskie Vedomosti, a newspaper based in the Russian-occupied town of Melitopol in Ukraine’s south. 

Armed men arrived at the homes of the four around dawn and confiscated computers from some of the journalists, before driving them off to an unknown location where they were held before later being let go, the journalists’ union said. 

Anna Medvid, the director general of the company that owns the newspaper, said the abductions were an attempt to coerce local journalists into supporting the Russian invasion. 

She said she too had recently been visited by pro-Russian officials. 

“A week ago, I was called in for a talk and they asked me to support them. They met me in the editorial office, which they entered arbitrarily before searching it,” Medvid told the journalists’ union.  

“[The Russian occupiers] want us to be loyal and supportive. I did not agree to it, and we parted ways,” she added. 

The condition of those abducted and then released Monday is not known. 

According to human rights organizations, there have been multiple reports of journalists, activists and local officials going missing since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost four weeks ago. 

Digital broadcaster Hromadske says the whereabouts of its reporter Victoria Roshchina is still unknown since she filed her last report on March 12 from the Russian-occupied town of Enerhodar. Ukraine’s government says it believes she was kidnapped by Russian forces in the town of Bediansk. 

The US has been unable to determine if Russia has designated a military commander responsible for leading the country’s war in Ukraine, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter — something that current and former defense officials say is likely a key contributor to the apparent clumsiness and disorganization of the Russian assault.

Without a top, theater-wide commander on the ground in or near Ukraine, units from different Russian military districts operating in different parts of Ukraine appear to be competing for resources rather than coordinating their efforts, according to two US defense officials.

Units participating in different Russian offensives across Ukraine have failed to connect, these sources say, and in fact, appear to be acting independently with no overarching operational design.

Russian forces also appear to be having significant communication issues. Soldiers and commanders have at times used commercial cell phones and other unsecure channels to talk to each other, making their communications easier to intercept and helping Ukraine develop targets for their own counterstrikes.

It’s all led to what these sources say has been a disjointed — and at times chaotic — operation that has surprised US and western officials. 

Historically, there have been instances in which Russia has publicized this kind of information, but the Ministry of Defense has not made any reference to a top commander for operations in Ukraine and did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the topic.  

And while it is possible that Russia has quietly designated a top commander to oversee the invasion — even if the US has been unable to identify that individual — the state of combat operations would suggest “he’s inept,” according to Hertling.

The Russian invasion has also been marked by an inordinate number of casualties among high-ranking Russian officers. 

The Ukrainians say they have killed five Russian generals during the first three weeks of the war, a claim CNN has not independently confirmed. Still, any military general being killed in combat is a rare event, Retired US Army Gen. David Petraeus told CNN’s Jake Tapper during Sunday’s State of the Union.

Col. Sergei Sukharev, the commander of an elite Russian airborne unit, was also killed in battle in Ukraine, Russian regional state TV network GTRK Kostroma reported Thursday.

“The bottom line is that their command and control has broken down,” said Petraeus.

The sheer size of the invasion has only made things worse. Coordinating operations along a front that measures over 1,000 miles requires “extensive communication capability and command, control and intelligence resources that the Russians just don’t have,” Hertling added. 

“I can’t see that anything the navy is doing is coordinated with the anything the air force is doing or anything the land force is doing,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, another former commander of the US Army in Europe, who cautioned that he had no inside knowledge of the US understanding of Russia’s command structure. 

“The Russians have had tremendous difficulties with command and control during this operation at all echelons,” echoed a US source familiar with the situation on the ground. “Some of this may be due to actions by the Ukrainians themselves.”

On the ground, Russian troops in the field have often been cut off from their senior commanders, sources said. 

“The guys in the field go out and they have their objective, but they have no way to radio back [if something goes wrong],” said another source familiar with the intelligence, who added that western officials believe this is part of the reason that some Russian troops have been observed abandoning their own tanks and armored personnel carriers in the field and simply walking away.

The head of the Ukrainian government’s Donetsk regional military administration said Monday the city of Avdiivka and its surrounding areas had been hit by Russian aircraft and artillery fire.

In a statement on his Telegram account, Pavlo Kyrylenko said at least one civilian was killed and at least two were injured in the recent strikes, and that shelling damage and fires had been recorded at 15 local addresses.

Kyrylenko also published photos of what he said were the results of Russian shelling, including damage to World War II monuments and collective graves for Red Army soldiers who fought Nazi Germany in World War II near the town of Toretsk. 

US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan leaves after a closed hearing at the US Capitol on May 24, 2021, in Washington, DC.

US Ambassador John Sullivan met with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday and “demanded that the government of Russia follow international law and basic human decency to allow consular access to all US citizen detainees in Russia, including those in pre-trial detention,” according to the US Embassy in Moscow.

The demand comes as WNBA player Brittney Griner and former US Marines Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed are being detained in Russia.

State Department principal deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter said Friday that the US Embassy in Moscow “continues to press, thus far unsuccessfully still, for consular access … for all detainees and that includes Ms. Griner.”

“We’re deeply concerned about our inability to access any of these US citizens in recent months,” Porter said.

CNN has reached out to the State Department and US Embassy about the Russian MFA’s account of the meeting.

Russian forces are beginning to have “inventory issues with precision-guided munitions,” a senior US defense official told reporters on Monday. Precision-guided munitions refer to missiles that target a specific location, as opposed to “dumb bombs,” which do not have the technology to focus on a specific target.

The inventory issues around their precision-guided munitions supply are why “you’re seeing the increasing use of what we would call dumb bombs,” the official added. 

Some of their precision-guided munitions are “failing to launch, or they’re failing to hit the target, or they’re failing to explode on contact,” the official said.

They have used “quite a bit” of their “cruise missile, air launch cruise missile” supplies and have seen a significant “number of failures” of those munitions, the official said. 

CNN previously reported Russia has relied far more heavily on less sophisticated, so-called “dumb” bombs than it has on its arsenal of precision-guided munitions in its punishing war on Ukraine. 

Ukrainian servicemen are seen at an explosion site of a shopping center on March 21 in Kyiv.

A senior NATO intelligence official said on Monday that signs are pointing to a stalemate emerging in Russia’s war on Ukraine, with Russian ground forces remaining stalled and Russian combat aircraft unable to achieve air superiority over Ukraine.

“If we are not in a stalemate already, we are rapidly approaching one,” the official told reporters during a briefing at NATO headquarters. “And it’s quite a thing to say when you consider the disparity in strength when this fight began.” 

“You don’t get to this point if you didn’t make a series of mistakes,” the official added.

The official noted a stalemate is particularly dangerous, however, given how Russia has resorted to using less precise, more brutal weaponry against civilian targets since its campaign stalled. 

Russia is not backing down either, despite their losses, the official said. In the last few days Russian forces have continued to assemble reinforcements and attempt to improve the logistical support in both Kyiv and the southern operational directions, the official said. The Belarusian government, meanwhile, is “preparing the environment to justify a Belarussian offensive against Ukraine,” the official added. Ukrainian officials have been warning publicly that Belarus might join the war.

It remains NATO’s assessment that Russia’s top goal is still to capture the Ukrainian capital and force a change of government there, as well as force Ukraine to adopt a neutral position with NATO and demilitarize. “I don’t think [Putin] has backed off any of his goals,” the official said. 

Boris Romanchenko, 96, survived four Nazi concentration camps, but his life was ended last Friday by a Russian strike on Kharkiv, according to the Buchenwald memorial institute.

The institute said in a series of tweets that according to his grand-daughter, Romanchenko was living in an apartment block in Kharkiv that was hit during a Russian attack.

The group said Romanchenko had survived the concentration camps at Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Dora and Bergen-Belsen during World War II. It said it was “stunned” by news of his death.

Romanchenko worked “intensively on the memory of Nazi crimes and was vice-president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee,” the institute said.

In 2012, Romanchenko attended an event recalling the liberation of Buchenwald, where he read an oath devoted to “creating a new world where peace and freedom reign,” the memorial said.

In 2018, a Kharkiv newspaper reported on his visit to Buchenwald on the 73rd anniversary of the camp’s liberation by US forces, saying, “The event was attended by the last surviving Buchenwald prisoners from Ukraine and Belarus — Borys Romanchenko from Kharkiv, Oleksandr Bychok from Kyiv and Andriy Moiseenko from Minsk.”

A new curfew will go into effect in Kyiv starting Monday at 8 p.m. local time. Meanwhile, shelling has continued in the capital this morning and at least eight people were reported killed in an attack on a shopping center.

Here are more headlines from today in the Russia-Ukraine conflict:

The US has seen increased Russian naval activity in the northern Black Sea, according to a senior US defense official.

The official said that the US believes some of the shelling around the Ukrainian city of Odesa has been coming from these warships, but that there is still not an indication of an imminent amphibious assault against Odesa.

Russia has more than a dozen warships in the northern Black Sea, including amphibious ships, surface combatants, a minesweeper, and patrol boats, according to the official.

Some more context: The Defense Department assesses that the Russians are “near desperate” to gain any momentum in their invasion, which is why they are increasing their long-range missile and artillery bombardments that have made the war even more dangerous for civilians.

The official noted that Russian forces “haven’t achieved anything” of what the US assesses to be their objective of controlling population centers, having only taken Melitopol, Berdyansk and Kherson since the start of the invasion, and having not taken Kharkiv or Mariupol and having not made any progress towards Kyiv since last week.

However, the long-range bombardments have only hardened the Ukrainian resistance, increasing the frustration of the Russian forces, according to the official.

It is also possible that Russia is trying to gain momentum simply to increase their leverage in negotiations with Ukraine, because they do not appear to have a lot of leverage now, the official said.

People arrive at a train station in Przemysl, Poland, from Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 20.

At least 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion less than a month ago, the head of the United Nations’ refugee agency said Sunday.

That figure accounts for almost a quarter of the country’s population, which was calculated at 44 million by the World Bank in 2020.

Of those who have left their homes, the majority — 6.48 million as of March 16, according to figures provided by the International Organization for Migration on Friday — have been internally displaced since the conflict began on Feb. 24.

Others have sought refuge in neighboring countries, including Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia, Russia and Belarus.

In the first three weeks of the conflict, two million people arrived in Poland from Ukraine, according to the UN, while more than a million went to other neighboring countries.

Raouf Mazou, the UNHCR assistant commissioner, said last week that he estimated 490,000 Ukrainians had fled to Romania, 350,000 to Moldova, 280,000 to Hungary, and 228,000 to Slovakia.

Read more about this here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is displayed on a giant screen after delivering a live voice message in front of the Swiss House of Parliament in Bern, Switzerland, on March 19.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling out Nestlé for the Swiss company’s continued relationship with Russia.

Nestlé, the world’s largest food-and-beverage company and the maker of Gerber, KitKat and Dreyer’s ice cream, defended itself by pointing out that it has made sweeping changes since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Nestlé employs more than 7,000 people in Russia, most of whom are locals, the company has previously said.

“The fact that we, like other food companies, supply the population with important food does not mean that we simply continue as before,” Nestlé said. “We are still one of the few active food companies in Ukraine and sometimes even manage to distribute food in Kharkiv.”

The Swiss company announced on March 11 that it suspended exports of its products out of Russia except for essential foods like baby food. Nestlé also said it stopped importing Nespresso and other products into Russia, except for essential foods such as baby food, cereal, tailored nutrition and therapeutic pet foods.

Nestlé said at the time it is “shocked and deeply saddened by the invasion of Ukraine” and the company stands with the international community in calling for peace and the restoration of security and stability.  

Last week, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal criticized Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider for the company’s continued presence in Russia.

“Unfortunately, he shows no understanding,” Shmyhal wrote on Twitter after saying he spoke to the Nestlé CEO. “Paying taxes to the budget of a terrorist country means killing defenseless children & mothers. Hope that Nestlé will change its mind soon.”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, center, pictured before a Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) meeting at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on March 21.By: 

The European Union will increase financial aid and delivery of weapons to Ukraine, German Finance Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday ahead of a special Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.

“We will increase financial means for the purchase of military goods to 1 billion euros, in order to make clear, we stand with full solidarity on Ukraine’s side, we stand for the protection of the civil population in Ukraine,” Baerbock told journalists.

Germany will also ensure that weapons sales from German producers will be carried out as quickly as possible. “Ukraine needs further weapons,” she said, without providing any further details due to security concerns.

“This is about life and death, we are in the middle of a war and therefore absolute caution is needed about stating which weapons are to be delivered and where,” Baerbock added.

“We are experiencing the Russian government continuing to escalate its rhetoric with regard to nuclear weapons as well as NATO territory,” she said. 

Baerbock also pointed out that the alliance must prevent the war spreading to other countries. “We have a responsibility towards Ukrainians, but we also have a responsibility towards 450 million Europeans and those that are NATO members,” she added. “We cannot take the responsibility that there will be more acts of war in other countries.”

“We work on consequently closing sanction loopholes,” she said. “Those who benefit from this war“ must be sanctioned, including their family members, Baerbock said. 

A Russian attack on a shopping center in the Podilskyi district of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv left at least eight people dead, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General.

A shopping center and cars in an adjacent parking lot caught fire following Russian shelling in Kyiv’s Podilskyi district, Ukraine State Emergency Service said late Sunday.

Here’s a look at before-and-after images of the shopping center:

Retroville shopping center in Kyiv, Ukraine.

An aerial view of the Retroville shopping center after a Russian shelling attack in Kyiv, Ukraine on March 21.

The CEOs of ExxonMobil, JPMorgan, Bank of America and other major companies are scheduled to meet with top Biden officials at the White House on Monday to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a White House official told CNN.

The off-the-record briefing will be hosted by the National Economic Council and National Security Council and will led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and other senior officials, the White House official said.

The meeting comes as the war in Ukraine, and the West’s punishing sanctions on Moscow, cast a shadow over the world economy. Supply disruptions impacting food, energy and other commodities threaten to exacerbate a 40-year high in inflation.

The summit will include business leaders from a cross-section of the economy, the White House official said, including the CEOs of oil producer ConocoPhillips, refinery giant Marathon Petroleum, clean energy company Invenergy, banking leader JPMorgan, manufacturers Dow and US Steel and food-and-agriculture firms Land O’Lakes and Cargill.

The briefing will include White House National Economic Council director Brian Deese and US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, the official said. 

Separately, US President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with leaders of Corporate America on Monday evening at the Business Roundtable’s Washington office. 

That Business Roundtable meeting will focus on the US response to Russia’s war with Ukraine, the administration’s plans to lower costs for families, efforts to boost hiring and tackle the climate crisis, the White House said. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers a video message from Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 21.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an appeal to Germany to save the capital city of Kyiv, in a televised address to the nation on Monday.

Kyiv, used to be called a “new Berlin,” similar in its spirit of “openness, emotion, freedom in the squares, sincerity of the people, clubs and parties,” Zelensky said. “Now Kyiv is closed. It is silent in anticipation of a new air raid siren that will force people into shelters.”

Zelensky played a 20-second clip of an air raid siren, calling it a sound Ukrainians have been hearing “for hours, days and weeks.” 

“The sound of the siren is something Ukrainians live with, work with and try to sleep. They treat their wounds; they give birth to babies and die,” he added.

Both Europe and Germans specifically “have the power” to place pressure on Russia, Zelensky said, saying that without “your trade, your companies and banks Russia will not have the money to fund this war.” 

He reiterated calls from Ukraine to close European ports to Russia, relinquish Russian energy sources and cut off the supply of goods to Russia.

The World Health Organization has reported six additional attacks on health care facilities in Ukraine on Sunday. 

On Twitter, the WHO said there have now been 52 verified attacks on health care in the past 25 days since Russia invaded Ukraine. 

“This is unacceptable,” it tweeted. “Health care must always be protected.”

David Beckham handed over control of his Instagram account Sunday to a doctor in Ukraine in a bid to highlight the “amazing work” of medical professionals caring for patients amid the Russian invasion of the country.

Throughout Sunday, the former England football captain, who has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2005, enabled Dr. Iryna – head of a perinatal center in Kharkiv – to show his 71.6 million followers the conditions under which she and her colleagues are working.

During the takeover, organized by UN children’s agency UNICEF, Iryna, who is identified only by her first name, posted clips and images from the facility in Ukraine’s second-largest city on Beckham’s Instagram Stories and revealed how the war had affected her role and the work of her team.

Iryna said she now works “24/7,” adding that while her team were “probably risking (their) lives” working during the conflict, “we love our work.”

Read more here:

David Beckham, an ambassador for Unicef since 2005, urged his followers to donate to the charity.

Related article David Beckham hands over Instagram account to doctor in Ukraine

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said the defenders of Mariupol had played a “huge role in destroying the enemy’s plans,” as he gave an update in which he claimed Russian forces were stalled elsewhere but acknowledged a “difficult situation” nationwide.

By confronting so much Russian firepower in Mariupol, Reznikov said on Facebook, “so many tens of thousands of lives throughout Ukraine were saved. Today Mariupol is saving Kyiv, Dnipro and Odesa. Everyone must understand this.”

Ukraine rejected an ultimatum to surrender the besieged city of Mariupol after a Russian deadline set at 5 a.m. Moscow time (10 a.m. ET) Monday passed.

Reznikov claimed that Russian ground forces elsewhere were stalled. This, he said, was why Moscow was “making desperate attempts to push Belarusian troops into the hell of war in Ukraine.”

Reznikov said Russia “no longer dreams of capturing Kyiv, and they are out of breath in the Chernihiv & Sumy regions and receiving painful blows near Kharkiv, in the Mykolaiv, Kherson and Luhansk regions.”

Chernihiv and Sumy, in the country’s north, are surrounded and have been heavily damaged but are still under Ukrainian control. Meanwhile, the southern city of Kherson is occupied by Russian forces but has seen persistent civilian protests, and there were further protests at the weekend in the southeastern town of Enerhodar after the deputy mayor was detained.

Russian troops in southern Ukraine are “still attempting to circumvent (the southern city of) Mykolaiv as they look to drive west towards Odessa,” Britain’s defense ministry said late Sunday. Russian naval forces, it said, “continue to blockade the Ukrainian coast and launch missile strikes on targets across Ukraine.”

Kharkiv has been subject to heavy missile and rocket attacks since the invasion began on February 24 but is not yet completely surrounded, according to Ukrainian officials.

Reznikov said that after 25 days of combat, “we are taking losses. The enemy is destroying our cities and undermining our economy. The situation is very difficult.

“But as long as our army, which is reinforced by reserves, is preserved – we will fight. And we will win!”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres speaks during a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on February 22.

The fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its impact on food and energy markets could have serious effects on the fight to curb the climate crisis, the UN chief has warned.

UN Secretary General António Guterres said that “the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine risks upending global food and energy markets – with major implications for the global climate agenda,” in comments to The Economist Sustainability Summit.

“As major economies pursue an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy to replace Russian fossil fuels, short-term measures might create long-term fossil fuel dependence and close the window to 1.5 degrees. Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use,” he added.

A major UN-backed report, published last month, found the impacts from human-caused climate change were larger than previously thought and warned of irreversible impacts if the world exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming.

Some background: Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the prices of key agricultural products produced in the region have skyrocketed. The biggest problem is wheat, a pantry staple. Supplies from Russia and Ukraine, which together account for almost 30% of global wheat trade, are now at risk. Global wheat prices hit an all-time high earlier this week.

Another major problem is access to fertilizer. Essential for farmers to hit their production targets for crops, it’s never been more expensive, as exports from Russia grind to a halt. Output in Europe has also plunged thanks to the surging price of natural gas, a key ingredient in nitrogen-based fertilizers like urea.

The situation is ringing alarm bells for global health experts. The cost of corn, soybeans and vegetable oils has been jumping, too.

The Russia-Ukraine crisis has also sent oil prices surging over the past month, driving gasoline prices in the United States to record levels. Although prices have since pulled back from their recent highs, oil soared back above $100 a barrel on Thursday on renewed concerns about the impact to Russian energy suppliers.

Read:

SEVILLE, SPAIN - APRIL 30: Traffic flow on the highway Sevilla Huelva, the first weekend with mobility between provinces, where many Sevillians have taken advantage of these circumstances to go to the beaches of the province of Huelva, April 30, 2021 in Seville. Andalusia. (Photo By Eduardo Briones/Europa Press via Getty Images)

Related article Oil 'emergency': Work from home and drive slower, IEA says

Actors Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have raised over $30 million for Ukrainian refugees who are fleeing the country amid the ongoing Russian invasion.

The couple, who first rose to fame on the sitcom “That ’70s Show,” previously vowed to match all donations to the fundraiser up to $3 million.

In a video shared on Kutcher’s Instagram, the couple thanked supporters for their donations. “Over 65,000 of you donated,” said Kunis. “We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the support.”

She pointed out that while the donations will not solve the crisis, “our collective effort will provide a softer landing for so many people as they forge ahead into their future of uncertainty.”

Read more here:

Related article Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher raise $30 million in donations for Ukrainian refugees

Vitali Klitschko delivers a message via social media on March 21.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko on Monday announced a new curfew in the capital.

In a statement on Telegram, Klitschko said the curfew would begin Monday at 8 p.m. local time and would last until 7 a.m. on Wednesday.

Some background: At least eight people were killed in a Russian attack on a shopping center in Kyiv’s Podilskyi district, according to information from the Ukrainian Prosecutor General. That number was based on what the Prosecutor General called preliminary information, suggesting the number could rise. CNN’s team on the ground heard several blasts in Kyiv on Sunday, and Klitschko said explosions in the Podil neighborhood, which is part of the city’s larger Podilskyi district, targeted residential and business areas.

People examine the damage after shelling of a shopping center in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 21.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Monday that air pollution had been detected in the capital following the Russian strike on a shopping center in the city’s Podil district, which killed eight people.

In a statement on Telegram, Klitschko said the fires resulting from the strike burned down a shopping center and damaged six apartment buildings, leaving three of them unfit for habitation. Meanwhile, the premises of two schools and two kindergartens were damaged, he said.

Klitschko also urged citizens not to shoot videos or post them on social media of military checkpoints, vehicle convoys or defenses around strategic installations. “Do not help the enemy!” he wrote.

Russian forces fired air-launched cruise missiles early Monday at what Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman, described as a Ukrainian military training center in Nova Lyubomyrka, in Ukraine’s northwestern Rivne oblast.

In a statement, Konashenkov claimed the strike inflicted dozens of casualties. CNN could not verify any of those claims.

Separately, Konashenkov said cruise missiles also destroyed an ammunition depot and the headquarters of a mechanized brigade near the western village of Selets, without providing additional details. 

Vitalii Koval, head of the Rivne regional administration, said in a statement on Telegram that two Russian missiles struck the territory of a military training ground. He added that a special commission was investigating and details would be released later.

Russian forces have made a series of strikes in recent days employing cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles, launched from outside Ukrainian territory. 

Ukraine has rejected an ultimatum to surrender the besieged city of Mariupol after a deadline set at 5 a.m. Moscow time (10 a.m. ET) passed. Meanwhile, shelling has continued in Kyiv this morning and at least eight people were reported killed in an attack on a shopping center in the capital.

Ultimatum rejected: The Ukrainian government and Mariupol city authorities rejected terms set out by Russia demanding the surrender of the besieged southern city to Russian forces. A deadline, set at 5 a.m. in Moscow (10 p.m. ET), came and went. “There can be no discussion of any surrender or of laying down arms,” Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said.  

Mariupol art school bombing: Also in Mariupol, an adviser to the city’s mayor said officials are struggling to find out how many people survived after an art school being used as a shelter was bombed by Russian forces on Sunday morning. An earlier estimate from the city council put the number sheltering in the school at 400. Vereshchuk said 7,295 people fled from the city through evacuation corridors on Sunday.

Eight killed following explosions in Kyiv: At least eight people were killed in a Russian attack on a shopping center in Kyiv’s Podilskyi district, according to information from the Ukrainian Prosecutor General. That number was based on what the Prosecutor General called preliminary information, suggesting the number could rise. CNN’s team on the ground heard several explosions in Kyiv on Sunday, and the city’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said explosions in the Podil neighborhood targeted residential and business areas.

Zelensky open to talks with Putin: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN he is ready to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but warned that if any negotiation attempts fail, it could mean the fight between the two countries would lead to “a third World War.” “I’m ready for negotiations with him. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations, we cannot end this war,” said Zelensky.

Ukraine summits: US President Joe Biden and fellow world leaders will hold a set of emergency summits in Europe this week. But few observers believe anything they can agree upon will be enough to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. Biden has “no plans” to visit Ukraine, the White House says, but he will travel to Warsaw, Poland following meetings with NATO allies, G7 and European Union leaders.

Airstrikes on an art school and a maternity hospital. Residential apartment buildings taking fire from tanks. More than 900 civilians killed in a matter of weeks.

Is Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal? His country’s unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine has presented reams of evidence that have led some world leaders – including US President Joe Biden last week – to use the loaded label.

The question now is what Biden’s comments – which he followed up by calling Putin a “murderous dictator” and “pure thug” – will mean for the war in Ukraine going forward.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday didn’t signal any concern that Biden’s remarks would roil talks with Russia. He told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that he’s “ready for negotiations” with Putin.

Biden’s comments represented a major moment since leading officials had mostly avoided saying war crimes were being committed in Ukraine, citing ongoing investigations into whether that term could be used. But soon after the President uttered the words “I think he is a war criminal” to reporters at an unrelated event, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the comment was “from the heart.” Other officials used similar language.

And after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he “personally” agreed with Biden’s label of Putin, Psaki told reporters that the top US diplomat was speaking from the heart “as well.”

Why all the parsing? While terms like “war crimes” and “war criminal” are often used colloquially, they do have a legal definition that could be used in potential prosecution. That includes in the Geneva Conventions, which specify intentional targeting of civilians as a war crime.

In other words, the White House is being careful to not get ahead of the international investigations probing Russia’s invasion.

Read the analysis in full:

Related article Analysis: Calling Putin a war criminal is a bigger deal than you think

Greece's Consul General Manolis Androulakis talks to the media after arriving back in Greece by plane from Romania after evacuating the city of Mariupol, Ukraine on March 15 and arriving in Athens, Greece, on March 20.

Greece’s consul general in Mariupol, the last EU diplomat to evacuate the besieged Ukrainian port, said on Sunday the city was joining the ranks of places known for having been destroyed in wars of the past.

Manolis Androulakis has assisted dozens of Greek nationals and ethnic Greeks to evacuate the ruined city since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He left Mariupol on Tuesday and after a four-day trip through Ukraine he crossed to Romania through Moldavia, along with 10 other Greek nationals.

“Mariupol will become part of a list of cities that were completely destroyed by war; I don’t need to name them – they are Guernica, Coventry, Aleppo, Grozny, Leningrad,” Androulakis said.

People dig a grave in the street in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 20.

Mariupol came under further heavy bombardment overnight, according to a Ukrainian officer inside the city.

“Bombs are falling every 10 minutes; Russian navy warships are shelling. Yesterday the soldiers defused four tanks, [as well as] armored vehicles and troops. We still need ammunition, anti-tank weapons and air defense,” Captain Svyatoslav Palamar of the National Guard Azov Regiment in Mariupol told CNN.

Palamar said he and his fellow fighters would not surrender in Mariupol.

Some background: The Russian-issued deadline for Mariupol authorities to surrender the city passed at 5 a.m. Moscow (10 p.m. ET Sunday), with Ukrainians rejecting the ultimatum.

The port city of Mariupol, which before the war was home to around 450,000 people, has been under near constant attack from Russian forces since early March with satellite images showing significant destruction to residential areas.

While the Russian ultimatum appeared to offer those who chose to surrender safe passage out of the city, it made no such guarantees for those remaining.

Russia has repeatedly been accused of targeting civilians, with trapped residents describing the onslaught as “hell.”

The Russian attacks have led to a total collapse in basic services, with residents unable to access gas, electricity or water. Bodies are being left in the street because there is either no one left to collect them, or it is simply too dangerous to try.

An official in the city said people are scared to leave their underground shelters even to get hold of essentials, meaning they were trying to drink less water and eat less food, only emerging to prepare hot meals.

Taken against their will: On Sunday, the Mariupol City Council said residents are being taken to Russia against their will by Russian forces. Captured Mariupol residents were taken to camps where Russian forces checked their phones and documents, then redirected some of the residents to remote cities in Russia, the council said. Russia denied the accusations Saturday.

Why Russia wants to control Mariupol: The city is a strategic port that lies on a stretch of coast connecting the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas with the Crimean peninsula. Russian-backed separatists have formed breakaway statelets in parts of the Donbas and Crimea has been under Russian control since 2014. Russian forces appear to be trying to take full control of the area to create a land corridor between the two regions, squeezing Mariupol with brutal military force.

At least eight people have been killed in a Russian attack on a shopping center in the Podilskyi district of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General.

A shopping center and cars in an adjacent parking lot caught fire following Russian shelling in Kyiv’s Podilskyi district, Ukraine State Emergency Service said late Sunday, adding that 63 firefighters worked to extinguish the flames that had reached as high as the third and fourth floors of the shopping center.

An aerial view of the completely destroyed shopping mall after a Russian shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 21.

“As a consequence of the enemy missile strike and the resulting fire, a shopping mall was destroyed, windows in the nearby residential buildings and the vehicles parked in the vicinity were damaged,” the Prosecutor General said in a post in its Telegram channel.

The Prosecutor General suggested the number of fatalities could rise, adding that the number of the dead was based on preliminary information.

Humanitarian aid supplies sent by the Red Cross Society of China to the Ukrainian Red Cross Society are transported in Warsaw, Poland, on March 15.

China will provide another batch of humanitarian aid, worth 10 million RMB ($1.57 million), to Ukraine “based on the development of the situation and actual needs,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

“China will continue to play a constructive role in promoting the de-escalation of the situation in Ukraine and is willing to make its own efforts to overcome the humanitarian crisis,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said during a regular briefing.

China provided its first batch of humanitarian assistance – worth 5 million RMB ($790,000) – to Ukraine earlier this month.

Ukrainians queue outside a refugee welcome center in Paris, France, on March 17.

More than 10,000 Ukrainian refugees have crossed into France since the beginning of the Russian invasion, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told French broadcaster RTL on Monday.

Speaking of the number of Ukrainian arrivals, he said, “It’s more than 10,000 but it’s probably many more.”

Darmanin added that Ukrainian nationals can enter France without a visa.

Many of those arriving were only passing through France, mainly heading towards the large Ukrainian community in Spain, he said.

At the request of French President Emmanuel Macron, the country is also preparing for possible Russian cyber interference in April’s presidential election, Darmanin said.

Some context: Prior to the 2017 French presidential elections, campaign staff with Macron’s campaign were targeted by suspected Russian-linked hackers. The Russian government denied involvement.

As Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues to intensify, reporting from the war zone is becoming increasingly difficult — and dangerous. Four journalists have so far been killed reporting on the war and many more are injured or missing.

Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent, said journalist Oleh Baturyn, who was kidnapped last week in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Kakhovka, was just released by Russian fighters.

The Kyiv Independent is a fairly new publication but has earned acclaim for its war coverage.

“It’s gone from being a three-month-old startup and a relative unknown in the Western world to now one of the leading sources of information on the war in Ukraine,” CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter said on Reliable Sources Sunday.

Rudenko said reporting on the conflict is a “daily risk” and the outlet is learning as they go when it comes to protecting employees who have suddenly found themselves war correspondents. 

Read the full story:

Editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent Olga Rudenko speaks with CNN on Sunday, March 20.

Related article How this Ukranian news outlet is protecting its journalists

An attack in the Podilskyi district of Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 18.

Russian forces are likely to prioritize attempting to encircle Kyiv over the coming weeks, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update on Monday.

Russian forces advancing on the capital from the northeast have stalled, while forces advancing from the direction of Hostomel city to the northwest have been repulsed by “fierce Ukrainian resistance,” the ministry said.

The bulk of Russian forces remain more than 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the center of the capital, the ministry added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow, Russia, on March 18.

Look at Moscow through the lens of Russian state television, and everything seems to be going swimmingly for President Vladimir Putin.

On Friday, the Kremlin leader attended a concert at the capital’s Luzhniki stadium to mark the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. The show, in effect, was a pep rally for Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Putin appeared in front of a flag-waving crowd in front of a podium that read, “Zа мир без нацисма” – “For a world without Nazism” – a sort of marketing slogan-slash-propaganda case for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The slogan even made use of the letter “Z,” which is morphing into the official symbol of support for Putin’s war: the Cyrillic letter “З” in the slogan was replaced by a Z, evoking the markings first spotted on Russian military vehicles ahead of the Feb. 24 invasion.

For those Russians who don’t support the war, life under the sign of the ‘Z’ is becoming increasingly grim.

Take a look at social media posts by some opposition activists. On March 16, Olga Misik — a youthful activist best known for reading a copy of Russia’s constitution in front of riot police at an anti-government demonstration — posted a photo of a Z spray-painted in white on her apartment door.

Another democratic activist posted a similar photo on Friday, the Z tag spray-painted in black along with graffiti accusing them of being an “enemy of the people.”

But why the vitriol, if everything — as Putin reassures his people — is going to plan?

Read the full analysis:

Related article Analysis: Inside Russia, a campaign gathers steam against fifth columnists and life under the 'Z'

A Sudanese woman buys vegetables at the Al-Khaimah market in Khartoum's Arkawit district on March 17 as food prices rise across Sudan and the region due to the conflict in Ukraine.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine could worsen the food crisis in the Middle East and North Africa, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned in a statement Monday.

“Both Ukraine and Russia are leading exporters of agricultural products to many Middle Eastern and North African countries, and disruptions related to the war are already exacerbating already-rising food prices and deepening poverty,” the statement said.

The Ukrainian government banned exports on key agricultural goods, including wheat, corn, grains, salt and meat, according to a cabinet resolution that passed on March 9.

HRW said even if the supply chain disruptions are resolved soon, the problems would likely continue “because farmers are fleeing the fighting and the conflict is destroying infrastructure and equipment.” The fighting could also diminish the coming harvest.

Some context: Combined, Russia and Ukraine are responsible for almost 30% of global wheat exports, according to Gro Intelligence, an agricultural data analytics firm.

Ukraine had been on track for a record year of wheat exports prior to the invasion, while Russia’s wheat exports were slowing, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

New Zealand will provide “non-lethal military assistance” to Ukraine, according to a statement from the government Monday.

“New Zealand will provide a further $5 million (US $3.4 million) contribution of non-lethal military assistance to support Ukraine and are making available a range of surplus defense equipment to share with Ukraine at their request,” the statement said.

The military package will include 1,066 body armor plates, 473 helmets, and 571 camouflage vests and harness webbing.

New Zealand’s Defense Force is now “working urgently on the details of how this much needed equipment will be swiftly delivered to Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said.

Some context: New Zealand added an additional 364 Russian political and military targets to a travel ban list on Friday. Also, 13 individuals and 19 entities were added to a sanctions list which included asset freezes. Those on the list include Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

This is the final bus out of the last position Ukraine holds on the road to Kherson — the first and only major city Russia has taken.

Villagers have standing room only, while the elderly have been rushed into a van.

“Grandpa, we are here,” shouts the daughter of one local, Viktor, from the bus doorway, as he sits a little bewildered in the van. The panic is real; at any moment the shelling could resume, a bombardment that residents say has littered the southern Ukrainian village of Posad-Pokrovske with cluster munitions.

As the convoy of two vehicles hits the pockmarked road out toward the city of Mykolaiv, shells once again tar the horizon with a plume of black smoke. Sat in the back of the van, Vitali breaks down, using his grimy, orange workman’s gloves to wipe tears from his eyes.

Airstrikes, grad rockets, cluster munitions — the residents recall two weeks of intense bombardment to which the fabric of Posad-Pokrovske bears witness.

The Ukrainian marines holding Posad-Pokrovske, the last settlement before the Russian positions that defend Kherson’s airport, remain vague about their positions.

But their goal is clear: the airport outside Kherson, used as a Russian base, that is already being heavily battered by Ukrainian shelling.

Read the full story:

The bus which was picking up civilians in Posad-Pokrovske to evacuate them

Related article Russia could be losing ground in battle for Mykolaiv, but it still seeks to crush what it cannot have

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is issuing his most fervent appeal yet for ceasefire talks with Vladimir Putin, but the so-far immovable Russian President is delivering a ruthless response by escalating atrocities against civilians.

Zelensky told CNN Sunday he is ready to talk to Putin at any time. His offer came more than three weeks into a war that appears to be entering a new, more deadlocked stage on the battlefield.

And while that counts as an extraordinary military success for outgunned Ukraine, it will also leave its cities and people even more vulnerable to brutal Russian bombardments, as seen Sunday when Russian bombs slammed into an arts school in besieged Mariupol where hundreds of people had been sheltering from the fighting, according to city officials.

The onslaught against civilians appears to be both a deliberate attempt by Moscow to break Ukraine’s remarkable morale and resistance — and to bomb an independent, sovereign nation, which Putin says has no right to exist, to smithereens to crush its dreams of joining the West.

Western governments have responded by pouring anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles into Ukraine in what is now a proxy war with Russia, which would have seemed an unbelievable prospect only a few weeks ago.

Read the full analysis:

ZHYTOMYR, UKRAINE - MARCH 20: A woman walks past a rocket crater and a destroyed home destroyed that was struck in a recent Russian attack on March 20, 2022 in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. Russian forces remain on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, but their advance has stalled in recent days, even while Russian strikes - and pieces of intercepted missiles - have hit residential areas in the north of Kyiv. An estimated half of Kyiv's population has fled to other parts of the country, or abroad, since Russia invaded on February 24. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Related article Analysis: The Ukraine war is now a 'bloody stalemate'

A chemical plant damaged by Russian shelling is leaking ammonia, contaminating a zone 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) around the facility, according to the governor of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine early Monday morning.

In posts to Facebook and Telegram, Dmytro Zhyvytsky warned the downwind village of Novoselytsia was at risk. The city of Sumy is unlikely to be affected due to the direction of the wind, he said.

The plant’s emergency personnel and the State Emergency Service are responding to the leak, Zhyvytsky wrote.

Some context: Sumy, close to the Ukrainian-Russian border, has been subjected to intense, daily Russian airstrikes. On Sunday, Zhyvytsky said 71 children from an orphanage in Sumy were evacuated to safety after spending two weeks in a basement sheltering from Russian shelling.

Retired Ukrainian seaman Yuri Golodov, 69, is the deputy commander of a Ukrainian Defense Forces unit specializing in capturing and repurposing Russian military equipment.

Retired Ukrainian seaman Yuri Golodov is playing a key role in repurposing military equipment abandoned by the Russian army — or captured from it by Ukrainians amid Russia’s invasion.

The deputy commander of one of Ukraine’s Territorial Forces, Golodov leads a team working at a military junkyard at an undisclosed location in Kyiv, repairing and repainting Russian military equipment for use by Ukrainian forces.

“Everything that we take away from the Russian army, we transfer to the armed forces of Ukraine,” he told CNN.

When CNN visited the junkyard, Ukrainian forces were stripping bare an artillery support vehicle, used to spot targets.

The Ukrainian flag had been painted over Russian military symbols, and Golodov’s unit was removing communications equipment before sending it back onto the front line.

“We’re going to use it to transport the wounded,” he says.

Golodov says his battalion is also responsible for capturing some of the equipment in the yard.

Read the full story:

Soldiers from Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces inspect a Russian armored personnel carrier they captured on the battlefield.

Related article Inside the Kyiv junkyard that recycles Russian weapons for Ukrainian forces

A deadline Moscow gave Ukrainian officials in the besieged city of Mariupol to surrender to Russian forces passed at 5 a.m. Moscow time, with Ukraine rejecting the ultimatum. Meanwhile, at least one person was killed after an explosion in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Here are the latest updates from the war in Ukraine:

Ultimatum rejected: The Ukrainian government and Mariupol city authorities rejected terms set out by Russia demanding they surrender the besieged southern city to Russian forces. A 5 a.m. Moscow (10 p.m.ET) deadline came and went. “There can be no discussion of any surrender or of laying down arms,” Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said.  

Mariupol art school bombing: An adviser to the mayor of Mariupol said officials in the city are struggling to find out exactly how many people survived after an art school was bombed by Russian forces Sunday morning. Many people were hiding in the school that was acting as a shelter. An earlier estimate from the city council put the number sheltering in the school building at 400. About 7,295 people fled from the city Sunday through evacuation corridors, Vereshchuk said.

Zelensky open to talks with Putin: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is ready to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but warned that if any negotiation attempts fail, it could mean the fight between the two countries would lead to “a third World War.” “I’m ready for negotiations with him. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations, we cannot end this war,” Zelensky told CNN.

On the ground: At least one person was killed after an explosion in the Ukrainian capital’s Podilskyi district Sunday. A shopping center and cars in an adjacent parking lot caught fire following the Russian bombardment, Ukraine’s emergency service said. Meanwhile, Russian troops in southern Ukraine are “still attempting to circumvent (the southern city of) Mykolaiv as they look to drive west towards Odessa,” the British Ministry of Defense said. Russian naval forces, it said, “continue to blockade the Ukrainian coast and launch missile strikes on targets across Ukraine.”

Ukraine summits: US President Joe Biden and fellow world leaders will hold a set of emergency summits in Europe this week. But few observers believe anything they can agree upon will be enough to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. Biden has “no plans” to visit Ukraine, the White House says, but he will travel to Warsaw, Poland following meetings with NATO allies, G7 and European Union leaders.

Civilians trapped in Mariupol are seen on the road on Sunday.

The Russian issued deadline for Mariupol authorities to surrender the city has now passed with Ukrainians rejecting the terms as a false choice.

The port city of Mariupol, which before the war was home to around 450,000 people, has been under near constant attack from Russian forces since early March with satellite images showing significant destruction to residential areas.

While the Russian ultimatum appeared to offer those who chose to surrender safe passage out of the city, it made no such guarantees for those remaining.

Russia has repeatedly been accused of targeting civilians, with trapped residents describing the onslaught as “hell.”

The Russian attacks have led to a total collapse in basic services — with residents unable to access gas, electricity or water. Bodies are being left in the street because there is either no one left to collect them, or it is simply too dangerous to try.

An official in the city said people are scared to leave their underground shelters even to get hold of essentials, meaning they were trying to drink less water and eat less food, only emerging to prepare hot meals.

Bobing of maternity hospital, theater: The city is increasingly bearing the brunt of Russia’s fierce assault on the country, with shelling day and night, said Major Denis Prokopenko, from the National Guard Azov Regiment. The assault has included deadly strikes on a maternity ward, and separate bombings of a theater and art school where hundreds of people were sheltering — the losses from which are still unknown as the rescue operations continue. The word “children” was spelled out on two sides of the theater before it was bombed, according to satellite images.

Civilians trapped: For weeks, Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of blocking evacuation corridors that would allow residents a safe escape from the city. Adviser to the mayor of Mariupol Petro Andrushenko said on his Telegram channel Sunday said people trying to flee the city in their cars were being shot at by Russian forces. The Ukrainian government said a relief convoy for the besieged city has repeatedly been blocked.

Taken against their will: On Sunday, the Mariupol City Council said residents are being taken to Russia against their will by Russian forces. Captured Mariupol residents were taken to camps where Russian forces checked their phones and documents, then redirected some of the residents to remote cities in Russia, the council said. Russia denied the accusations Saturday.

Why Russia wants to control Mariupol: The city is a strategic port that lies on a stretch of coast connecting the eastern region of Donbas with the Crimea peninsula, both of which have been under Russian control since 2014. Russian forces appear to be trying to take full control of the area to create a land corridor between the two regions, squeezing Mariupol with brutal military force.

The Russian Defense Ministry has presented an ultimatum to the leadership of the besieged city of Mariupol: surrender before dawn on Monday. 

Both the government in Kyiv and the Mariupol city authorities have flatly rejected the Russian terms. 

Here’s what we know:

Deadline looms: The Russian Ministry of Defense called on Mariupol local authorities to surrender the city to Russian forces by 5 a.m. Moscow Monday (4 a.m. Monday in Mariupol and 10 p.m. ET Sunday), according to Russian state media.

Ukraine rejects deadline: In an interview late Sunday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk rejected Russia’s terms, which were laid out in an eight-page document. 

“There can be no discussion of any surrender or of laying down arms,” she said.  

On its Facebook page, Mariupol city council also rejected Russian demands, saying “They gave time until the morning to formulate a response. But why wait so long?” There followed an expletive. 

Ceasefire:  The Russian Defense Ministry proposed “to the fighting parties to declare a ceasefire and guarantee its strict observance from 9:30 a.m. Moscow time,” (8:30 a.m. in Mariupol and 2:30 a.m ET).  

It would then open evacuation corridors to the city half-an-hour later, it said.

Russia blames Ukraine “bandits”: In calling on city officials to surrender, RIA Novosti quoted Mizintsev saying “we appeal to the odious bandits, who are responsible for hundreds of lives of innocent people, and now call themselves representatives of the official local authorities, of this unique city Mariupol.”

Some context: Mariupol has been under siege for several weeks and has seen some of the worst attacks in the war since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February. These have included deadly strikes on a maternity ward, the bombing of a theater and art school, the losses from which are still unknown as the rescue operations continue.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky said Sunday that what Russian forces had done to Mariupol was an “act of terror that will be remembered for centuries”

The mayor of Kyiv, as well as the city’s police, posted images of explosions in the Podilskyi district in Ukraine’s capital on Telegram Sunday.

One person was killed following the explosions, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said late Sunday. Several explosions were heard in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, according to CNN’s team on the ground.

Images from the Kyiv police below:

Fire and smoke seen bellowing after explosions occurred in the Podilskyi district of Kyiv.

Oleg Nikolenko, Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, called Russia’s actions in Mariupol on Sunday “a chapter from WWII.”

“First they came to destroy the cities, bombing hospitals, theaters, schools, and shelters, killing civilians and children. Then they forcibly relocated the scared, exhausted people to the invader’s land. A chapter from WWII? No – the actions of the Russian army, today in Mariupol,” Nikolenko wrote.

The Mariupol City Council said Saturday residents are being taken to Russia against their will by Russian forces.

Russia denied the accusations Saturday.

According to the Russian state media outlet, RIA Novosti, Russian Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev said nearly 60,000 residents of Mariupol have “found themselves in Russia in complete safety.”

Nearly half of Chernobyl’s nuclear plant staff were able to rotate and return to their homes, Ukraine’s nuclear regulator, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Sunday.

Those who were able to leave the plant had been working for nearly four weeks, according to the IAEA.

IAEA Director Gen. Rafael Grossi tweeted that he welcomed news of the staff’s rotation, emphasizing “they deserve our full respect and admiration for having worked in these extremely difficult circumstances. They were there for far too long. I sincerely hope that remaining staff from this shift can also rotate soon.”

Grossi also said he is “continuing consultations with a view to agree on a framework for the delivery of IAEA assistance. The initiative aims to ensure safety and security at Ukraine’s nuclear sites.”

On March 15, Ukraine informed the UN’s nuclear watchdog the Chernobyl nuclear power plant had reconnected to the national electricity grid after losing on-site power. 

As of Monday, the site had been receiving all required power from the repaired line, enabling the staff to switch off the emergency diesel generators they were relying on since March 9, it said in a statement.

Since Russian troops took control of the nuclear plant on February 24, the plant’s 211 technical personnel and guards had not been able to leave, meaning they had been “in effect living there for the past three weeks,” according to the watchdog. 

The Ukrainian regulator told the IAEA the information it received regarding Chernobyl was “controlled by the Russian military forces” and consequently it could not “always provide detailed answers to all” questions posed.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky speaks with CNN on Sunday, March 20.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday he is ready to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but warned that if any negotiation attempts fail, it could mean the fight between the two countries would lead to “a third World War.”

“I’m ready for negotiations with him. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations, we cannot end this war,” Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an exclusive interview Sunday morning.

“If there’s just 1% chance for us to stop this war, I think that we need to take this chance. We need to do that. I can tell you about the result of this negotiations — in any case, we are losing people on a daily basis, innocent people on the ground,” he said.

He continued, “Russian forces have come to exterminate us, to kill us. And we can demonstrate that the dignity of our people and our army that we are able to deal a powerful blow, we are able to strike back. But, unfortunately, our dignity is not going to preserve the lives. So, I think we have to use any format, any chance in order to have a possibility of negotiating, possibility of talking to Putin. But if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third World War.”