Ukraine: What happened today, Thursday, March 10?
A Ukrainian serviceman walks past the vertical tail fin of a Russian Su-34 bomber lying in a damaged building in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Picture: AP Photo/Andrew Marienko
Talks between Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Turkey this afternoon ended without any breakthrough.
After the meeting, Ukrainian officials accused Moscow of ignoring pleas for humanitarian access to rescue hundreds of civilians trapped in besieged cities across Ukraine.
"I made a simple proposal to Minister Lavrov: I can call my Ukrainian ministers, authorities, president now and give you 100% assurances on security guarantees for humanitarian corridors.
"I asked him 'can you do the same?' and he did not respond,” Me Kuleba said in a press briefing after the high-level talks had concluded.
In a parallel briefing, Mr Lavrov suggested that a ceasefire was not meant to be on the agenda for the talks.
Mr Lavrov claimed Russia’s invasion had been going to plan so far, and accused the Ukrainian military of breaking previous ceasefire agreements.
He went on to claim that the Mariupol maternity hospital hit by a Russian airstrike on Wednesday afternoon had been used to house “radicals” and that doctors and other medical staff had been emptied out of the hospital before it was attacked. Three people died in the shelling of the hospital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected Mr Lavrov’s remarks.
"Like always, they lie confidently," he said.
15 days into Russia’s invasion, more than 2.3 million Ukrainians have fled their country, with thousands killed and injured.
The United Nations human rights office said it has recorded the killings of 516 civilians in Ukraine in the two weeks since Russia invaded, including 37 children.
- Despite Russia's claims that its military does not target hospitals, bombs also fell on two hospitals in a city west of Kyiv today.
- Billionaire owner of Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich, has been sanctioned by the UK for his links to Vladimir Putin as the Government pressures Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
- The US house of representatives has overwhelmingly approved legislation that would ban Russian oil imports to the United States.
- As more than two million refugees from Ukraine begin to scatter throughout Europe and beyond, some are carrying valuable witness evidence to build a case for war crimes.
- In a harrowing account, Alevtina Shernina, who was a young girl during the brutal siege of Leningrad during the Second World War, spoke of her experience of living through Russia's shelling of urban areas of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Meanwhile, Russian forces have advanced in the south of Ukraine, but have yet to capture a single city in the north or east.
Western countries have said they believe that after a planned lightning strike on Kyiv failed in the early days of the war, Moscow turned to tactics involving far more destructive assaults.
Half of the population of the Ukrainian capital has now fled since the Russian invasion, Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said this afternoon.
"From our information, one in two Kyiv residents has left the city.
"A little less than 2 million people have currently left. However, Kyiv has been transformed into a fortress. Every street, every building, every checkpoint has been fortified."
The situation in other cities like Mariupol is deteriorating rapidly, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without access food, water, heat, electricity or medical care.
The humanitarian in the southern city is becoming “increasingly dire and desperate” according to International Red Cross.
In an audio message recorded on Wednesday, Sasha Volkov, the organisation’s delegation deputy head said: "People started to attack each other for food. People started to ruin someone’s car to take the gasoline out.
"All the shops and pharmacies were looted several days ago, he said, and people have been getting sick because of the cold.
"We keep the shelter, the basement, only for children and their mother. All other adults and children above twelve sleep in the office.
"We will have food for a few days. We have started to get sick, many of us, because of the humidity and cold that we have. We tried to achieve hygiene standards as much as possible but not always actually possible."
Since last weekend, Russia has repeatedly pledged to halt firing so at least some trapped civilians could escape the city.
This has not happened, and both sides have blamed the other for the failure of the evacuation attempts thus far.
Two weeks into Russia’s assault on Ukraine, its military is struggling more than expected, but President Vladimir Putin’s invading force of more than 150,000 troops retains possibly insurmountable advantages in firepower as it bears down on key cities.
Despite often heavy shelling on populated areas, American military officials reported little change on the ground over the last 24 hours, other than Russian progress against the cities of Kharkiv and Mykolaiv, in heavy fighting.
The public has been urged to donate medicines and practical items such as batteries rather than clothing for Ukrainian refugees as understanding of the crisis grows.
HSE chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry has said that the HSE is focused on providing access to medical services for refugees arriving from Ukraine.
The UK has also sanctioned Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who, through his company Rusal, owns the Aughinish alumina plant in Limerick.
The Irish Red Cross has said it is “blown away” by the generosity of the Irish public after close to 12,000 offers of accommodation to Ukrainian refugees were made to the charity.
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