Moscow accused of forcibly removing civilians to Russia

A man walks on the debris of a burning house in Kharkiv, Ukraine (Felipe Dana/AP)

Ukraine has accused Moscow of forcibly removing hundreds of thousands of civilians from shattered Ukrainian cities to Russia to pressure Kyiv to give up, while president Volodymyr Zelensky urged his country to keep up its military defence and not stop “even for a minute”.

Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsman, said 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, had been taken against their will into Russia, where some may be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to surrender.