What you need to know right now:
- Russian forces in Ukraine were blasting cities and killing civilians but no longer making progress on the ground, according to Western intelligence, as the war entered its fourth week.
- Over 350,000 people are sheltering in the besieged southern port of Mariupol, officials said.
- Rescuers are combing the rubble of a theatre in Mariupol bombed on Wednesday for survivors. Russia denies striking it. Italy said it will rebuild it.
- The governor of the northern Chernihiv region said 53 civilians had been in killed in the past 24 hours. Russia denies targeting civilians.
- The UN said it had recorded 780 confirmed civilian deaths since the invasion began, and 3.2 million have fled.
- Russia's invasion has largely stalled on all fronts in recent days amid heavy losses, British military intelligence and the Ukrainian armed forces said.
- A "very, very big gap" remains between Ukraine and Russia, Western officials said after another day of peace talks.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin shows little desire to compromise, they said, while Ukraine wants to retain sovereignty over areas occupied since 2014 by Russia and pro-Russian forces.
- Russia accused the United States of stoking "Russophobia" and said it had the power to put its "brash enemies into place".
- Washington said it was concerned that China was assisting Russia with military equipment. US president Joe Biden will talk to Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday.
22:00: Dutch authorities have now frozen or seized more than €200 million in assets from individuals or companies sanctioned in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the country's central bank president said on Thursday.
The disclosure by Klaas Knot was made during an appearance on television program Nieuwsuur.
His remarks came after the country's finance minister informed parliament on Tuesday the Netherlands had only seized 6 million euros in Russian assets since February 24th.
"It wasn't a lot, but it was the number from a week ago," Knot said. "I can tell you that in the meanwhile we have now frozen or seized well over 200 million euros ... (and) I expect it will rise further.
"We had some startup problems."
21:45: The U.S House of Representatives overwhelmingly backed legislation on Thursday to remove "most favoured nation" trade status for Russia and Belarus over the invasion of Ukraine, paving the way for higher tariffs on imports from the countries.
The Democratic-controlled House voted 424-8 in favour of removing Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status, the latest congressional effort to put economic pressure on Moscow.
21:00: Russia will no longer put to a vote on Friday a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for aid access and civilian protection in Ukraine, Russia's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Thursday.
"We decided, at this stage, not to ask for a vote on our draft, but we are not withdrawing the draft resolution," Nebenzia told the 15-member council, accusing Western countries of placing "unprecedented pressure" on other council members not to support the measure.
20:30: Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday tweeted that he had spoken to French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and said the two men had emphasized "the continuation of peaceful dialogue."
Zelenskiy added: "We must strengthen the anti-war coalition."
20:10: The heads of major international financial institutions on Thursday pledged to coordinate their responses to support Ukraine and neighboring countries in response to the war in Ukraine, and said the conflict's impacts would spread throughout the global economy.
In a joint statement, heads of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and other development institutions said: "The entire global economy will feel the effects of the crisis through slower growth, trade disruptions, and steeper inflation, harming especially the poorest and most vulnerable.
"Higher prices for commodities like food and energy will push inflation up further."
19:40: The World Health Organisation has verified 43 attacks on health care in Ukraine that have killed 12 people and injured dozens more, including health workers, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the UN Security Council on Thursday.
"In any conflict, attacks on health care are a violation of international humanitarian law," Tedros told the 15-member council, without specifying who was to blame for the attacks.
19:15: The UN's political affairs chief has said that the organisation recorded 726 people killed in Ukraine between February 24th and March 15th, including 52 children.
18:45: US secretary of state Antony Blinken on Thursday said that president Joe Biden will make it clear to Chinese leader Xi Jinping that China will bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support Russia's aggression.
Blinken told reporters that the United States is concerned that China is considering directly assisting Russia with military equipment.
18:15: The International Committee of the Red Cross called on the warring parties on Thursday to let people leave the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol safely and to allow aid in.
Up to 40 ICRC staff and their families had to flee the portalong with other civilians on Wednesday, because they had "no operational capacity any more," the organisation's head Peter Maurer told a news conference.
But the ICRC would be making arrangements to bring in aid as soon as it could safely, he added.
18:00: Russia has fired more than 1,000 missiles at Ukrainian targets since the start of its invasion, which has now entered its fourth week, a senior US defence official said on Thursday.
17:30: France's president said on Thursday Russia's invasion of Ukraine had delivered an "electric shock" to the Nato alliance and given it a new strategic clarity that it was lacking.
Emmanuel Macron, speaking to reporters as he launched his campaign for re-election, was responding to a question about whether he regretted describing Nato as "brain dead" around two years ago.
"Russia has given us a wake-up call," Macron said. "I always considered that we needed a strategic clarification, and we are in the process of getting it."
He said events in Ukraine had given Nato that clarity because it brought it back to its origins.
17:15: French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said he did not rule out following the example of eastern European leaders and travelling to Kyiv, but said such a trip needed to come at the right moment and be useful for resolving the crisis.
17:00: The Italian government is ready to rebuild a theatre in the besieged Ukrainian city Mariupol which was devastated by a bomb attack, culture minister Dario Franceschini said on Thursday after a cabinet meeting.
"The cabinet ... has approved my proposal to offer Ukraine the resources and means to rebuild it as soon as possible. Theatres of all countries belong to the whole (of) humanity," Franceschini wrote on Twitter.
Ukraine has said the theatre was hit by a Russian air strike on Wednesday while people sheltered there from bombardments. Russia denied striking the theatre. But its forces have blasted cities and killed many civilians in its assault on Ukraine, now entering its fourth week.
Italy is ready to rebuild the Theatre of #Mariupol. The cabinet of Ministers has approved my proposal to offer #Ukraine the resources and means to rebuild it as soon as possible. Theaters of all countries belong to the whole humanity #worldheritage pic.twitter.com/FPictnEloy
— Dario Franceschini (@dariofrance) March 17, 2022
16:45: The growing number of Ukrainians seeking refuge in Germany will become a "big, big challenge," chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday.
Speaking after talks with the leaders of Germany's 16 states to discuss the coronavirus pandemic, Scholz said that despite the challenge it should be relatively easy to help Ukrainians settle in given that they don't need visas to enter Germany, and they have automatic access to healthcare and education as well as language and integration courses.
German police have so far registered just under 190,000 Ukrainians who have fled Russia's invasion of their country.
16:30: US president Joe Biden will hold a call on Friday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as Washington piles pressure on China to not support Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a step that would dramatically widen the gulf between Beijing and Western governments.
The call, announced by the White House on Thursday, comes at a pivotal moment in US-China relations and in Ukraine, where heavily outnumbered local forces have prevented Moscow from capturing any of the country's biggest cities so far.
16:20: The International Monetary Fund's executive board has temporarily suspended the largely ceremonial role of dean, held by Russian executive director Aleksei Mozhin, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, an IMF spokesman said on Thursday.
The position has been traditionally granted to the longest-serving member of the IMF executive board and carries little power.
16:00: Authorities in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol said on Thursday it was still not possible to estimate the number of possible casualties from what they said was an air strike on a theatre where hundreds of people were believed to have been sheltering.
"Yesterday and today, despite continuous shelling, rubble is being cleared as much as is possible and people are being rescued. Information about victims is still being clarified," the city council said in an online statement about Wednesday's incident.
It provided no figures on the number of people rescued. Russia has denied bombing the theatre.
14:50: The International Committee of the Red Cross has called on the warring parties to allow safe passage out of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol and allow aid in, the organisation's head Peter Maurer said on Thursday.
The ICRC had to leave the city on Wednesday, Maurer told a news conference, because its staff had "no operational capacity any more", but the organisation would be making arrangements to bring aid "as soon as we have a safe way".
The ICRC was also still seeking access to prisoners of war from both sides in the conflict, adding captured troops should be treated with dignity and not exposed to "public curiosity."
13:50: Survivors have begun to emerge as authorities work to rescue hundreds of civilians trapped in the basement of a theatre blasted by Russian air strikes in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the local governor said.
The strikes the previous evening had left a large section of the grand, three-storey theatre building in the centre of Mariupol collapsed in a smoking ruin, according to photos released by the city council.
Inside, hundreds of men, women and children – up to 1,000, according to some officials – had taken shelter in the basement, seeking safety amid Russia’s strangulating three-week siege of the strategic southern port city.
Rescuers worked to clear rubble that had blocked the entrance to the basement, despite new strikes reported elsewhere in the city on Thursday.
12:10: Russia said on Thursday it had made debt payments that were due this week but the announcement did not end a wait for what could be Moscow's first default on external borrowing in more than a century as creditors said they had yet to receive the funds.
Russia was due to pay $117 million in coupon payments on Wednesday on two dollar-denominated sovereign bonds, widely seen as the first test of whether Moscow will meet its obligations after Western sanctions were imposed.
It has a 30-day grace period from Wednesday's deadline.
Sanctions imposed over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine have cut Russia off from the global financial system and blocked the bulk of its gold and foreign exchange reserves, while Moscow has in turn imposed countermeasures - all of which complicate payments.
12:05: Each air strike and shell that relentlessly pounds Mariupol – about one a minute at times – drives home the curse of a geography that has put the city squarely in the path of Russia’s domination of Ukraine. This southern seaport of 430,000 has become a symbol of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drive to crush democratic Ukraine – but also of a fierce resistance on the ground.
11:15: Nato is determined to stop the war in Ukraine from escalating further, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday.
"NATO has a responsibility to prevent this conflict from escalating further. That would be even more dangerous and cause more suffering, deaths and destruction," Stoltenberg told a joint news conference in Berlin with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Stoltenberg added that he welcomed Scholz's efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the war, including direct contacts with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
10:30: Russia’s war in Ukraine will disrupt commerce and clog up supply chains, slashing economic growth and pushing prices sharply higher around the globe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned.
9:40: A bomb shelter under a theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol withstood what Ukraine said was a Russian air strike and there are believed to be survivors trapped underneath, an official at the mayor's office said on Thursday.
Ukraine accused Russian forces on Wednesday of dropping a powerful bomb on the theatre, where it says hundreds of civilians including many children were sheltering during a more than two-week-long siege of the encircled port city.
Russia has denied bombing the theatre.
"The bomb shelter held. Now the rubble is being cleared. There are survivors. We don’t know about the (number of ) victims yet," mayoral adviser Petro Andrushchenko told Reuters by phone.
He said rescue work was under way to reach survivors and establish the number of casualties, which was still unknown.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that the allegation that Russia had bombed the theatre was a "lie".
She repeated Kremlin denials that Russian forces have targeted civilian areas since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
"Russia's armed forces don't bomb towns and cities," she told in a briefing.
