Ukraine war: civilians leave Mariupol via humanitarian corridor; Russian ex-foreign minister calls for ceasefire – latest news

• 3.50pm GMT 15:50 Russian forces blow up explosives near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, reports say
• 3.43pm GMT 15:43 Ukraine's PM warns conflict "can become a third world war"
• 3.35pm GMT 15:35 EU agrees to freeze Roman Abramovich's assets – diplomatic sources
• 3.20pm GMT 15:20 Ukraine PM says Russian forces "behaving like terrorists" and are "killing children"
• 2.25pm GMT 14:25 Convoy of cars 'leaves' encircled Ukrainian city of Mariupol - Reuters
• 12.04pm GMT 12:04 Russia denies asking China for military help in Ukraine
• 11.48am GMT 11:48 Russian airstrike hits residential building in Kyiv

14:25

A convoy of more than 160 cars departed from Mariupol on Monday, local officials said, in what appeared to be the first successful attempt to arrange a “humanitarian corridor” to evacuate civilians from the encircled Ukrainian city.

Civilians have been trapped in the Black Sea port city for more than two weeks and are running out of supplies after being surrounded by Russian forces, the Ukrainian authorities say.

After several days of failed attempts to deliver supplies to Mariupol and provide safe passage out for trapped civilians, the city council said a local ceasefire was holding and the convoy had left for the city of Zaporizhzhia.

“It is known that as of 1pm (11am GMT) more than 160 private cars managed to leave,” it said in an online post. It said the convoy had reached the nearby city of Berdyansk and was heading on towards Zaporizhzhia.

“There is also confirmation that a ceasefire is currently holding along the humanitarian corridor that has been established,” it said. Reuters was unable immediately to verify the convoy’s progress.

Updated at 2.30pm GMT

At least nine people were killed and nine more wounded in an air strike on a television tower in Ukraine’s northern Rivne region on Monday, governor Vitaliy Koval said.

“There are still people under the rubble,” he said in an online post, Reuters reports.

Lorenzo Tondo

Ukrainian authorities have denied accusations by the Russians after a Ukrainian missile allegedly exploded in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk killing 20 civilians, Lorenzo Tondo reports.

On Monday, Russian defence ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that ‘’a Soviet-made Tochka-U missile hit the central part of the eastern city of Donetsk’’ after it was intercepted by the pro-Russian rebels’ forces.

According to Russian-backed separatists, cited by Russia’s TASS news agency, fragments of the missile landed in the city centre, killing 20 people. Another 28 civilians, including children, were seriously wounded by the missile, Konashenkov added, describing the attack as a “war crime”.

“People were waiting in line near an ATM and were standing at a bus stop,” local separatist leader Denis Pushilin told the Rossiya 24 network. “There are children among the dead,”

However, Ukrainian military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin denied the accusations, saying that the missile, that carried shrapnel warhead, was in fact a Russian rocket.

“It is unmistakably a Russian rocket or another munition, there’s not even any point talking about it,” Matyukhin told the press.

Note: the Russian and Ukrainian claims cannot be independently verified.

The UK’s levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, has shared details about the “homes for Ukraine” scheme being set up to allow people to put up Ukrainian refugees in their homes.

Speaking in the Commons, Gove said the number of Ukrainians arriving in the UK was “rapidly increasing”.

The new scheme would allow more people to come, he said, and would benefit Ukrainians with no families ties with the UK. Ukrainians with close relatives in the country can use the existing visa system.

For more live updates from the UK, head over to our UK politics blog with Andrew Sparrow.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, confirmed on Monday that a fourth round of talks with Russia was under way via video link.

The presidential adviser and negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said in a tweet that the talks would be on “peace, ceasefire, immediate withdrawal of troops [and] security guarantees”.

Podolyak later said talks had taken a “technical pause” and would resume tomorrow.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to order Russian nuclear forces to be put on high alert is a “bone-chilling development”, United Nations chief António Guterres said.

Speaking in New York, the UN secretary-general said the once “unthinkable” prospect of nuclear conflict was back within the realm of possibility.

He added that the UN will allocate a further $40 million from its Central Emergency Response fund to ramp up humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

The funds will help get critical supplies of food, water, medicines and other vital supplies into the country, as well as providing cash assistance to those in need, he said.

Jennifer Rankin

Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal has urged the Council of Europe to expel Russia from its ranks in what would be a historic first at the human-rights body, Jennifer Rankin reports.

Addressing parliamentarians from across Europe via video link at an emergency meeting of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Shmyhal said:

The right to life is one of the key fundamental rights and today at the centre of Europe this right is being violated every minute and every second.

Ukraine demanded Russia to be ousted from the Council of Europe, he said, because they could not stay “in this single European family where human life is the highest value”.

Russia announced on Friday it would leave the Council of Europe, shortly before it was stripped of its voting rights. But no country has ever been expelled from the human rights body, founded in the ashes of world war two in 1949.

The Ukrainian prime minister criticised the Council of Europe for reinstating Russia’s voting rights in 2019, after relations were restored in a decision that attempted to draw a line under the seizure of Crimea in 2014. The decision to bring Russia back “showed a poor understanding by the world of the real threat that Putin’s regime is”, he said, adding that Europe had chosen “the road of pacifying the aggressor rather than defending the values of democracy, the rule of law, of human rights”.

After the annexation of Crimea, many governments baulked at expelling Russia completely because they did not wish to deny Russians the protection of the European Court of Human Rights.

Ukraine could also lose a legal avenue to pursue Russia, but Shmyhal said the Kremlin could not hide from the consequences of its actions: “We all know that punishment for genocide and terrorism cannot be avoided.”

He repeated Ukraine’s pleas for a no-fly zone, that Nato countries have so far refused, in a speech that recounted the appalling toll of the war on Ukrainian civilians. Almost 90 children had been killed, he said, and thousands of people were without food, water and heat; hundreds of schools and hospitals had been destroyed and nuclear power plants were “on the brink of disaster”.

Citizens in Crimea were being forcibly conscripted into the army of the “enemy state”, he said, adding one anecdote without additional details:

A Russian military pilot is dropping bombs on his own mother in Poltava region. It’s hard to believe that, but even such crazy things become normal life for the aggressors .

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenkskiy had been due to address the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe earlier on Monday but pulled out due to “urgent unforeseen circumstances” and asked the prime minister to take his place.

The Council of Europe is due to take a decision on Russia’s future in the organisation on Tuesday.

There are reports that Russian forces blew up explosives at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Ukraine’s parliament earlier said Russian troops planned to begin “disposal” of ammunition in front of the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station.

Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal, who has been addressing the Council of Europe, says Vladimir Putin has started a “full-scale war” in the centre of Europe that “can become a Third World War”.

He called for Council members to approve a no fly zone over Ukraine “to defend all of Europe”.

We are asking – we are demanding – to close the skies over Ukraine for the sake of millions of people in Ukraine. For the sake of European and world security.

Shmyhal also thanked “from the bottom of my heart” Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Lithuania and other European countries for their support and for giving shelter to Ukrainians who have fled the war and violence.

The EU is to sanction Roman Abramovich and other oligarchs in its latest round of punishment of Russian billionaires who have been seen as supporting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, AFP cites three diplomatic sources as saying.

Abramovich and the others are being added to a list of individuals whose assets in the EU - including superyachts and mansions - can be seized and entry into the bloc refused, the diplomats said.

According to one source, the stated reason for sanctioning Abramovich was because he “is a Russian oligarch who has long and close ties to Vladimir Putin,” to whom he has “privileged access”.

Sanctions will be effective only after publication on the EU’s official journal, which usually happens within hours or the day following formal approval.

In a virtual address to the Council of Europe, Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal says Russia is forcing people in Crimea to serve in the Russian armed forces.

He says:

Today the Russian government is mobilising the residents of Crimea to the armed forces of Russia, forcing people who are to be protected by the Fourth Geneva Convention to serve in the armed forces of the enemy state.

Russian military pilot is dropping bombs on his own mother. It’s hard to believe that, but even such crazy things have become a normal life for the aggressors.

Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal says the world has “finally opened its eyes” to Vladimir Putin’s real intentions and says Russia has violated fundamental rights and freedoms since it invaded Ukraine.

Addressing the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, he says Russian forces are “behaving like terrorists”.

They bombard schools, kindergartens, hospitals. They kill children. They take hostages.

They kidnap representatives in the local authorities. They torture civilians.

Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal is addressing the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe.

Shmyhal is speaking in President Zelenskiy’s place, after it was reported the Ukrainian president would not give his scheduled address to the Council of Europe, citing “urgent, unforeseen circumstances”.

Europe “chose the road of pacifying the aggressor” for years, Shmyhal says, instead of “defending the values of democracy, the rule of law and human rights”

He goes on to say Europe showed a “poor understanding” of the real threat of Vladimir Putin’s regime despite “numerous violations of international law and other human values”.

Photos of Mariana Vishegirskaya were seen around the world as she escaped a maternity ward in Mariupol after it was bombed by the Russian military.

Vishegirskaya, who gave birth to a girl the next day, has described in this video what it was like in the ward when the attack began.

Katy Fallon

The mayors of Poland’s two largest cities have said they are struggling to cope with the huge number of refugees arriving from Ukraine, as UN figures show more than 1.7 million people have crossed into Poland in the weeks since Russia’s attack began.

Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, said that 300,000 people had arrived in the capital and pledged to continue to support refugees. But, he said on Twitter: “Our city remains the main destination for Ukrainian refugees. [The] situation is getting more and more difficult every day.”

More than 2.8 million people have fled Ukraine since 24 February, when the Russian invasion began. According to UN Human Rights Council data, more than half have travelled to Poland.

Refugees arriving to the Polish capital are mainly being accommodated in private residences, as well as two large sports arenas. Signs are now being posted in central train stations in Warsaw to direct people to other parts of Poland where there is more space to accommodate and provide for them. “Big cities in Poland are already overcrowded,” says one sign, “don’t be afraid to go to smaller towns: they are peaceful, have food, infrastructure and are well adapted.”

“I have this feeling that Warsaw is full and I hear it from many people. The reception points in Warsaw are also overcrowded,” said Marianna Ossolińska, a coordinator at the Club of Catholic Intelligentsia, which is working with refugees in Poland. Ossolińska is managing their hostel, which offers 70 beds and has been full since shortly after it opened on 2 March.

“Many refugees try to come to Warsaw, probably because they believe it will be easier to find transport to western Europe from a capital city, or to find a job or make connections,” she said.

A convoy of more than 160 cars departed from Mariupol on Monday, local officials said, in what appeared to be the first successful attempt to arrange a “humanitarian corridor” to evacuate civilians from the encircled Ukrainian city.

Civilians have been trapped in the Black Sea port city for more than two weeks and are running out of supplies after being surrounded by Russian forces, the Ukrainian authorities say.

After several days of failed attempts to deliver supplies to Mariupol and provide safe passage out for trapped civilians, the city council said a local ceasefire was holding and the convoy had left for the city of Zaporizhzhia.

“It is known that as of 1pm (11am GMT) more than 160 private cars managed to leave,” it said in an online post. It said the convoy had reached the nearby city of Berdyansk and was heading on towards Zaporizhzhia.

“There is also confirmation that a ceasefire is currently holding along the humanitarian corridor that has been established,” it said. Reuters was unable immediately to verify the convoy’s progress.