Turkey claims Moscow and Kyiv are closer on critical issues, as a school gets bombed

  • March 21, 2022, 10:52 a.m.

Moscow and Kyiv were close to reaching an agreement on key points, said Turkey, even as a top Ukrainian aide said Russia had turned to "more destructive artillery." Russia earlier said its forces used hypersonic "Kinzhal" missiles for a second time to hit Ukrainian targets.

Russian troops stepped up their bombardment of the besieged port city of Mariupol during the day, with Ukrainian officials saying a strike flattened an art school used as a shelter by hundreds of civilians.

Here were the key updates on the weeks-long war that has ravaged the east European nation, prompting the worst refugee crisis in Europe’s history since the Second World War and unprecedented sanctions on Russia by the US and its allies for Moscow’s war on Kyiv:

- Ukraine is likely to receive its next batch of weaponry, including javelins and stingers, from the US in the coming days.

- Evacuations continued even amid heavy fighting, particularly in Mariupol. Local officials said Russian forces blocked several trucks carrying humanitarian aid.

- The United Nations said 10 million people, more than a quarter of the population, -- have now fled their homes in Ukraine due to Russia's "devastating" war.

- Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his offer to negotiate with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy accused Russia of war crimes over its siege on Mariupol, describing the attack on Mariupol as "a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come".

- A group of children stuck in a clinic in Ukraine's besieged Mariupol for weeks had been taken to Russian-controlled territory, a carer and a relative of the clinic's worker told AFP Sunday. The 19 children, aged between four and 17 and mostly orphans, had been living in freezing cellars hiding from shelling in harrowing conditions.

- In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was interested in peace, and that ongoing talks with Russia were "necessary."

- Pope Francis denounced Russia’s "repugnant war" against Ukraine as "cruel and sacrilegious inhumanity".

- Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station caused a stir when they posed in yellow and blue uniforms; Moscow denied that was a show of support for Ukraine.

- In the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv, a Russian missile strike on a marine barracks killed at least 40 Ukrainian troops, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said. The missiles were fired from the neighboring Kherson region, he said.

- Authorities in the eastern city of Kharkiv said at least five civilians, including a nine-year-old boy, were killed in the latest round of shelling. Kharkiv has been under siege since the start of the Russian invasion and has faced relentless Russian artillery.

- The office of Ukraine's prosecutor general said at least 112 children had been killed since the fighting started. More than 140 children were wounded.

Author : Rajdhani Delhi Representative

Rajdhani delhi representative

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