Ukraine: What happened today, Wednesday, March 30?
Smoke rises the air in Lviv, western Ukraine, following a Russian airstrike. Picture: AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty
Russian forces continued to bombarded the outskirts of Kyiv and a besieged city in northern Ukraine on Wednesday, just day after pledging to scale down operations those areas.
On Tuesday, Moscow’s lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said Russia was planning to curtail some of its operations in order to "increase mutual trust for peace talks."
However, from early on Wednesday morning, explosions could be heard in the southeast of Irpin, a Kyiv suburb which has seen heavy fighting in recent weeks.
Shelling is also reported to have intensified in Cherniv over the last 24 hours.
The city's mayor, Vladyslav Astroshenko, said up to 100,000 people remain trapped there, with just enough food and medical supplies to last for another week.
"This is yet another confirmation that Russia always lies," he told US TV.
Speaking about the ongoing peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Turkey, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the negotiations had been "positive, but they do not drown out the explosions and Russian shells".
"Ukrainians are not naive people," he said.
"Ukrainians have already learned during these 34 days of invasion, and over the past eight years of the war in Donbas, that the only thing they can trust is a concrete result."
The Kremlin on Wednesday welcomed the fact Kyiv has set out its demands for an end to the conflict in Ukraine in written form, but said there was no sign of a breakthrough yet.
On Wednesday afternoon, the United Nations (UN) said nearly 4m Ukrainians, many of them women and children, have fled their home country since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
The UN also estimated that about 25% of all of Ukraine's population have been driven from their homes over the past five weeks.
- US intelligence officials have determined that Vladimir Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about Russian forces’ performance in Ukraine, according to an official.
- Poland has announced steps to end all Russian oil imports by the end of the year, as Germany issued a warning over natural gas supplies and called on consumers to conserve energy amid escalating economic tensions in Europe over Russia’s war in Ukraine.
- Also in Poland, women and children have been queuing up to board trains back to Ukraine so they can return to their homes and support their relatives who have stayed.
Over the past week or so, Ukrainian forces have made substantial advances and have succeeded in recapturing some territory.
In several towns and villages on the outskirts of Kyiv, and in the eastern city of Sumy, Russian forces have been pushed back.
According to the United States, Russia has indeed begun to move small numbers of its troops away from positions in the areas surrounding the Ukrainian capital.
However, this is believed to be more of a repositioning than a complete withdrawal.
quoted one US official as saying: "The world should be prepared for continued major offensives against other areas of Ukraine.
"They are shifting gears. No one should mistake that for Russia ending the conflict."
In a statement on Wednesday evening, Russia’s defence ministry said its forces were regrouping near Kyiv, and Chernihiv in order to focus on other key areas and complete the “liberation” of the breakaway Donbas region, where it is trying to capture more territory for separatists it has backed since 2014.
The Donbas includes the besieged city of Mariupol, home to more than 400,000 people.
Ukrainian officials say 5,000 people have been killed in Mariupol since the end of last month, including 120 children.
New satellite imagery from a US-based firm has revealed the extent of the destruction in Mariupol, where some 90% of buildings have been destroyed and damaged with about 40% completely levelled and no longer inhabitable.
In a phone call on Wednesday morning, Russian president Vladimir Putin reportedly told French president Emmanuel Macron that strikes on the city would only end when Ukrainian troops surrender.
A Kremlin spokesperson said Mr Putin told Mr Macron that "in order to resolve the difficult humanitarian situation in this city, Ukrainian nationalist militants must stop resisting and lay down their arms".
On Wednesday afternoon, the building of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Mariupol was hit by a Russian airstrike.
"the occupiers aimed at the building of the International Committee of the Red Cross," Ukrainian ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisov said in a statement.
"Enemy aircraft and artillery fired on a building marked with a red cross on a white background, indicating the presence of wounded, civilian or humanitarian cargo.
Ms Denisov did not say exactly when the strike took place and casualties from the strike are yet to be reported.
She said the strike constituted "another war crime of the Russian army in accordance with the Rome statute of the international criminal court and a gross violation of the 1949 Geneva conventions".
"I call on the world community to condemn the barbaric actions of the occupying country in shelling the ICRC building and to take measures to end the bloody war on the territory of Ukraine as soon as possible."
The ICRC previously described the current situation in Mariupol as "apocalyptic".
An extra 35,000 permanent homes could be needed for Ukrainian refugees on top of the 33,000 new houses that must be built every year, the Housing Minister has said.
The Government is scrambling to convert commercial properties, vacant buildings and even churches to house the tens of thousands of Ukrainians that are expected to arrive here in the coming days and weeks.
The soaring rise in fuel and energy prices being experienced by Irish consumers has yet to reflect the full implications of the war in Ukraine or the fresh wave of Covid-19 cases the governor of the Central Bank of Ireland has warned.
The owner of the huge bauxite smelter has delivered a stark assessment of the threats the aluminium giant faces amid Russia’s growing economic isolation, increasing uncertainty around its plant at Aughinish in the Shannon Estuary.
A champion synchronised swimmer from Ukraine has found a new temporary home in Tralee after fleeing her native country with her family.
