Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 20 of the Russian invasion

The US fears China has already decided to send economic aid to Moscow, and a rare anti-war protest made it on to Russian state media

Firefighters work in an apartment building damaged by shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine. Picture: AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

China has already decided to provide Russia with economic and financial support during its war on Ukraine and is contemplating sending military supplies such as armed drones, US officials fear. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, laid out the US case against Russia’s invasion in an “intense” seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, pointing out that Moscow had feigned interest in diplomacy while preparing for invasion, and also that the Russian military was clearly showing signs of frailty. Earlier, it was reported that the US had told allies that China “responded positively” to a Russian request for military equipment, a claim Beijing has denied.

An employee of Russia’s state Channel One television interrupted a Russian state TV broadcast by shouting “No to war” and holding a sign that read “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.” The poster held up by Marina Ovsyannikova on Monday evening also said, in English, “Russians against the war”. The protest was welcomed by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who said: “I’m thankful to those Russians who don’t stop trying to deliver the truth.” Russia-Ukraine talks will continue on Tuesday, Zelenskiy said. In an address on Monday night he also called on Russian soldiers to surrender. Addressing them directly he said: “What are you dying for?… If you surrender to our forces we will treat you as humans have to be treated, with dignity.” The UK’s Ministry of Defence said Russia could be planning to use chemical or biological weapons in a “faked attack” in Ukraine or a “staged discovery” of biological agents.

This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows burning and heavily damaged apartment buildings and the destroyed Port City shopping mall in western Mariupol, Ukraine. Picture: Maxar Technologies via AP

“Almost all” of the Russian advances in Ukraine “remain stalled”, a senior US defence official said during a background briefing, CNN reports. Russian forces moving on Kyiv have not appreciably progressed over the weekend. A close ally of Putin, national guard chief Viktor Zolotov, blamed the slower than expected progress on what he claimed were far-right Ukrainian forces hiding behind civilians.

US president Joe Biden is considering travelling to Europe for in-person meetings with Nato allies, Reuters reports. Biden could meet other leaders in Brussels on 23 March and then travel to Poland, the report said.

A convoy of more than 160 cars departed from Mariupol today, local officials said, in what appeared to be the first successful attempt to evacuate civilians from the encircled Ukrainian city . 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.

Firefighters extinguish an apartment house after a Russian rocket attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, Ukraine. Picture: AP Photo/Pavel Dorogoy

The mayor of Ukraine’s frontline city of Kharkiv said the city had been under constant attack by Russian forces, Reuters reports. Speaking on national television, Ihor Terekhov said Russian troops had fired at central districts causing an unspecified number of casualties.

A Russian airstrike hit a residential building in Kyiv as Moscow’s forces stepped up their brutal campaign to capture Ukraine’s capital and other major cities. One person was found dead in the nine-storey apartment building, officials said, with three more people hospitalised as air raid sirens sounded in the capital and other cities hours before Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were set to resume talks.

The Antonov aircraft plant in Kyiv was shelled by Russian forces, the Kyiv city administration said in an update on its official Telegram account on Monday morning. At least two people were killed and seven injured, it said.

Ukrainian authorities have denied accusations by Russia after a Ukrainian missile allegedly exploded in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk killing 20 civilians. Ukrainian military spokesperson Leonid Matyukhin said the missile, that carried warhead shrapnel, was in fact a Russian rocket. The Russian and Ukrainian claims cannot be independently verified.

Refugees fleeing Ukraine arrive at the Vysne Nemecke border crossing in Vysne Nemecke, Slovakia. More than two million people have fled Ukraine into neighbouring countries since Russia launched a large-scale invasion of the country on February 24. Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

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.

At least nine people were reportedly killed and nine more wounded in an airstrike on a television tower in Ukraine’s northern Rivne region today. “There are still people under the rubble,” governor Vitaliy Koval said in an online post, Reuters reports.

Ninety children have been killed and more than 100 wounded in Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office said. “The highest number of victims are in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kherson, Mykolayiv and Zhytomyr regions,” it said in a statement.

Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said Russian forces were “behaving like terrorists” and Putin had started a “full-scale war” in the centre of Europe that could “become a third world war”. Addressing the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, he said Europe “chose the road of pacifying the aggressor” for years instead of “defending the values of democracy, the rule of law and human rights”.