Updated at 21:28
What you need to know right now:
- Ukrainian civilians began leaving two besieged areas after Russia opened "humanitarian corridors" for them, but Kyiv said Russian forces had shelled an evacuation route from the port city of Mariupol.
- President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday a U.S. ban on Russian oil and other energy imports, ramping up pressure on Moscow in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine. Read full story
- Ukraine's government accused Russia of shelling a humanitarian corridor it had promised to open to let residents flee the besieged port of Mariupol.
- Biden acknowledged the ban on Russian energy imports, which has bipartisan support, would drive up U.S. energy prices but said the move was necessary and should encourage the shift towards cleaner energy.
- The European Commission published plans to cut EU dependency on Russian gas this year by two-thirds and end its reliance on Russian supplies of the fuel "well before 2030".
- Ukraine's Zelenskiy told Britain's House of Commons via videolink: "The question for us now is to be or not to be. I can give you a definitive answer: it's definitely to be."
- Russia said Ukrainian authorities had endorsed only one civilian evacuation route from areas affected by fighting out of 10 that were proposed, including five towards territory controlled by Kyiv, Interfax news agency reported.
- The United Nations human rights office said it had verified 1,335 civilian casualties so far in Ukraine, including 474 killed and 861 injured, but the true toll was likely to be higher.
- Ukraine says its forces have killed more than 11,000 Russian troops. Russia has confirmed about 500 losses. Neither side has disclosed Ukrainian casualties.
- At least 27 civilians have been killed in attacks by Russian forces on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in the past 24 hours, regional police said.
- McDonald's Corp MCD.N said it would temporarily close its restaurants and pause all operations in Russia.
- Unilever ULVR.L became the first major European food company to stop imports and exports out of Russia
- The London Metal Exchange halted trade in nickel after prices of the metal, a key component in electric vehicle batteries, doubled to more than $100,000 a tonne.
- The world's largest cosmetics group, L'Oreal, said it would temporarily shut its stores and e-commerce sites in Russia.
- Two million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, the U.N. refugee agency said.
21:18: Russian forces will stop firing from 10 a.m. Moscow time (07:00 GMT) on Wednesday and are ready to provide humanitarian corridors, so people can leave Kyiv and four other cities,
Information about corridors from Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol will be sent to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, said Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defence Control Centre.
Vereshchuk said earlier on Tuesday that authorities had once again not been able to evacuate civilians from Mariupol.
"Given the deteriorating humanitarian situation ... and in order to ensure the safety of civilians and foreign citizens, Russia will observe a regime of silence from 10 am Moscow time on March 9th and is ready to provide humanitarian corridors," Tass cited Mizintsev as saying.
Mizintsev earlier said Ukrainian authorities had endorsed only one civilian evacuation route from areas affected by fighting out of 10 that were proposed, including five towards territory controlled by Kyiv.
⚡️ Russia destroys 61 Ukrainian hospitals.
Health Minister Viktor Lyashko says the Russian military has damaged buildings and medical equipment.— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 8, 2022
19:03: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to Britain on Tuesday to do more to help his country battle Russia and punish what he called a "terrorist state", striking a defiant tone that Ukraine would fight on, no matter what the cost.
Addressing Britain's parliament and greeted by a standing ovation in a packed chamber of lawmakers, Zelenskiy documented the Russian invasion day by day, listing the weapons used, the civilians killed and the lack of food and water for many.
Dressed in an olive green T-shirt, he thanked Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has sought to take a leading role in backing Ukraine against Russia, for the help already offered, but said Britain and other Western countries had to go further.
He called for more international sanctions on top of those already imposed on Moscow, a no-fly zone in Ukraine and for the West to recognise Russia as a "terrorist state".
"The question for us now is to be or not to be...I can give you a definitive answer: it's definitely to be," Zelenskiy told the lawmakers via videolink through a translator, quoting from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
"We will not give up and we will not lose. We will fight to the end on the sea, in the air, we will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost. We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets," he said - remarks recalling Britain's World War Two Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Thankful for US and @POTUS personal leadership in striking in the heart of Putin’s war machine and banning oil, gas and coal from US market. Encourage other countries and leaders to follow.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 8, 2022
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18:41 Ukrainian troops repulsed efforts by Russian forces to enter the eastern city of Kharkiv on Tuesday and foiled a planned operation by 120 Russian paratroopers near the border, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said.
The paratroopers landed by the Ukrainian border town of Vovchansk, around 50kms northeast of Kharkiv, but were routed by Ukrainian forces, he said in televised comments.
18:10 The United States, the world's biggest consumer of oil, on Tuesday banned Russian oil and other energy imports in retaliation for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
The ban on Russia, the world's top exporter of more than 7 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products, exacerbated supply concerns and powered oil prices higher, with global benchmark Brent crude surging past $133 a barrel. Britain also said it will phase out the import of Russian crude and oil products by the end of 2022.
18:00 McDonald's said it would temporarily close its restaurants in Russia, becoming the latest Western company to pause all operations in the country after it moved troops into Ukraine. The fast-food chain said it would go on paying salaries to its 62,000 employees in Russia.
16:12: The European Union has taken in two million refugees fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and millions more will follow, the bloc's top migration official said on Tuesday.
Russian forces have subjected a number of Ukrainian cities and towns to devastating bombardment and left places like the port of Mariupol without power or water for days, putting to flight hundreds of thousands in the country of 44 million people.
"This will not be over soon. (Russian President Vladimir)Putin is fighting his war without remorse, restraint or mercy," EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told the European Parliament. "More is to come. Worse is to come. Millions more will flee and we must welcome them."
The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said the number of people to have fled Ukraine in eastern and central Europe reached two million on Tuesday, amid renewed efforts to create safe evacuation corridors from cities under attack.
With virtually all of them arriving in the EU, it has let in over the course of 12 days more people than in 2015 and 2016 combined, when Syria's war triggered the previous large immigration wave to Europe, dividing the 27-nation bloc.
Talked to @MinPres. Told about the humanitarian situation in 🇺🇦, casualties among civilians, the course of evacuation and delivery of humanitarian aid. Thanked the Netherlands for its uncompromising stance on sanctions pressure on Russia and support for 🇺🇦’s accession to the #EU
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 8, 2022
Now, Johansson said, more than one million people have arrived in Poland, almost half a million in Romania and more than 100,000 in both Hungary and Slovakia, the four EU neighbours bordering Ukraine to the east.
Apart from Ukrainian nationals, some 130,000 of the refugees are Afghans and Belarusians who lived in Ukraine, as well as Indian, Nigerian and Turkish students, she said.
"Everyone fleeing the war...is allowed to cross the border and are welcome in the EU," said Johansson, adding that only around 8,000 Ukrainians claimed asylum last week, while most travelled on to friends and family already living in the bloc.
Under an emergency decision by all 27 EU nations, Ukrainian refugees are allowed to work, send children to school, get housing and social welfare swiftly. But it remains to be seen when and how they would be distributed among member states.
Since 2015, the EU has suffered bitter internal divisions over how to share out migrants and refugees fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.
As Mediterranean EU countries bearing the brunt of arrivals struggled to cope, it was only the wealthier, northern member states like Germany, Sweden or the Netherlands that agreed to host some of the mainly Muslim new arrivals.
But eastern EU countries led by Poland and Hungary refused to take in anyone, saying this would have threatened their national security and their Christian traditions.
They have now changed tack and allow in the mostly Christian Orthodox Ukrainians. Poland is among countries that had a significant and well-integrated Ukrainian diaspora before the war started on Feb. 24.
3.09pm: The White House is expected to impose a ban on US imports of oil from Russia as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine, Democratic US Senator Chris Coons said.
In an interview with CNN, Coons said the announcement of the ban could come on Tuesday or Wednesday, while a person familiar with the plans told Reuters a ban could be announced on Tuesday.
The White House said President Joe Biden was expected to make a sanctions announcement at 3.45pm Irish time.
Russia is the world's biggest exporter of oil and natural gas, and until now its energy exports had been exempted from international sanctions. Although the United States is not a leading buyer of Russian oil, its allies are likely to come under pressure to wean their economies off Russian energy.
The announcement will intensify the impact of the war on a global economy already suffering supply shortages and price surges as it lurches out of the pandemic crisis. In the United States, gas pump prices have already surged to a record since Russia launched the invasion on February 24th, worsening inflation that was already at 40 year highs.
In Ukraine, Kyiv accused Moscow of shelling a humanitarian corridor it had promised to open to let residents flee the besieged port of Mariupol, where hundreds of thousands of people have been sheltering under relentless bombardment without water or power for more than a week.
"Ceasefire violated! Russian forces are now shelling the humanitarian corridor from Zaporizhzhia to Mariupol," Ukraine's foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko wrote on Twitter, adding that 30 buses had been sent for evacuations.
"Pressure on Russia MUST step up to make it uphold its commitments."
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a child had died of dehydration in Mariupol because water was cut off. The claim could not be independently verified.
Russia opened a separate corridor allowing residents out of the eastern city of Sumy on Tuesday, the first successful evacuation under such a safe route.
Buses left Sumy for Poltava further West, only hours after a Russian air strike, which regional officials said had hit a residential area and killed 21 people. Russia denies targeting civilians.
1.47pm: The White House is likely to ban Russian oil imports and is working closely with European allies on the issue, Democratic US senator Chris Coons has said.
The announcement may come Tuesday or Wednesday, Mr Coons said in an interview with CNN.
1.35pm: Russia called in the Irish ambassador on Tuesday to demand an apology and lodge a formal complaint, the foreign ministry said, after a man drove a lorry through the gates of Russia's embassy in Dublin to protest against Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian ministry accused protesters near its embassy of "essentially adopting tactics widely used by terrorists", and demanded Ireland compensate Moscow for damage, stating it wanted those responsible for the incident punished.
"We expect the authorities of the country to conduct an objective investigation and punish those responsible," it said in a statement.
Videos posted on social media showed a driver reversing an articulated truck through the gates of the embassy and stopping after one gate was torn off.
While Tánaiste Leo Varakdar encouraged people to utilise their right to protest, he said they should do so peacefully, describing the incident at the Russian embassy as “foolish and unhelpful”.
1.17pm: A temporary ceasefire mostly held around the Ukrainian city of Sumy on Tuesday, allowing civilians including around 1,000 foreign students to be evacuated through a humanitarian corridor, the regional governor said.
Convoys of 20-30 private cars were leaving in waves, governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky said in televised comments.
12.16pm: Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has said there were credible reports that Russia was targeting civilians in Ukraine and urged Moscow to end the conflict, also vowing not to let it spread.
"We have a responsibility to ensure the conflict does not escalate and spread beyond Ukraine," Mr Stoltenberg said. "We will protect and defend every inch of all allied territory," he added.
Speaking alongside Latvia's president Egils Levits, Mr Stoltenberg said Russia's invasion was causing horrific suffering and that the humanitarian impact was devastating.
11.50am: The advance of Russian forces in Ukraine has slowed significantly and Ukrainian forces are counter-attacking in some areas, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said on Tuesday.
"The tempo of the enemy's advance has slowed considerably, and in certain directions where they were advancing it has practically stopped," he told a televised briefing. "The forces that continue to advance, advance in small forces."
However, Russian forces are bombing civilian infrastructure and homes in Ukraine's northern region of Zhytomyr, and carried out air strikes on two oil depots on Monday evening, governor Vitaliy Bunechko said in televised comments on Tuesday, but gave no further details.
11.06am: Russian forces shelled an evacuation route for civilians trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol in violation of a ceasefire agreement on Tuesday, Ukraine foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said on Twitter.
"8 trucks + 30 buses ready to deliver humanitarian aid to Mariupol and to (evacuate) civilians to Zaporizhzhia. Pressure on Russia MUST step up to make it uphold its commitments," he said.
Ceasefire violated! Russian forces are now shelling the humanitarian corridor from Zaporizhzhia to Mariupol. 8 trucks + 30 buses ready to deliver humanitarian aid to Mariupol and to evac civilians to Zaporizhzhia. Pressure on Russia MUST step up to make it uphold its commitments.
— Oleg Nikolenko (@OlegNikolenko_) March 8, 2022
10.43am:Shell plans to withdraw from Russian oil and gas and stop all spot purchases of Russian crude oil as a first immediate step, the British energy major announced on Tuesday.
The company's chief executive, Ben van Beurden, said he is “sorry” for buying a shipment of Russian oil last week even as dozens of major international companies announced they would abandon the country following its invasion of Ukraine.
10.35am: Thirty buses are en route to the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol to collect evacuees via a humanitarian corridor to Ukrainian-controlled territory, Ukraine's deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on television on Tuesday.
There were signs Russian forces were firing in the direction of a route for humanitarian aid, she added, without providing further details.
Elsewhere, the European Commission has prepared a new package of sanctions against Russia and Belarus over the invasion which will hit additional Russian oligarchs and politicians and three Belarusian banks, three sources told Reuters.
The sanctions, to be discussed by EU ambassadors on Tuesday at a meeting due to start at 2pm Irish time, will ban three Belarusian banks from the SWIFT banking system and add several oligarchs and Russian lawmakers to the EU blacklist, which already includes many, the sources said.
The new sanctions package also bans exports from the EU of maritime technology to Russia, and provides guidance on the monitoring of cryptocurrencies to avoid their use to circumvent EU sanctions, the sources added.
10.12am: The number of refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine has now increased to 2 million, the head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday.
"Today the outflow of refugees from Ukraine reaches two million people," Filippo Grandi said in a tweet.
This comes as the World Health Organisation (WHO) said attacks on hospitals, ambulances and other health care facilities in Ukraine have increased rapidly in recent days and warned the country is running short of vital medical supplies.
The UN agency confirmed on Monday that at least nine people had died in 16 attacks on health care facilities since the start of a Russian invasion on February 24th. It did not say who was responsible.
The WHO's senior emergency officer for Europe, Catherine Smallwood, told a news briefing that the tally included incidents where ambulances had been commandeered for purposes other than emergency healthcare.
The agency was working to rapidly supply medical supplies to Ukraine, where oxygen, insulin, personal protective equipment, surgical supplies and blood products are running low, Europe regional director Hans Kluge told the briefing.
The supply of oxygen, children's vaccines and mental health expertise were among the WHO's top priorities for the region, he said.
9.34am: A first convoy of residents and foreign students has left the Ukrainian city of Sumy after an agreement with Russia on establishing a humanitarian corridor, officials have said.
"We have already started the evacuation of civilians from Sumy to Poltava (in central Ukraine), including foreign students," the foreign ministry said in a tweet. "We call on Russia to agree on other humanitarian corridors in Ukraine."
Meanwhile, Russia and the United States should return to the principle of "peaceful co-existence" like during the Cold War, the Interfax news agency cited the Russian foreign ministry as saying on Tuesday.
The Russian foreign ministry added that it was open to honest and mutually respectful dialogue with the United States and that hope remained that normalcy in relations between the two countries could be restored, Interfax reported.
8.25am: Russia has opened "humanitarian corridors" so people can be evacuated from Kyiv and four other Ukrainian cities: Cherhihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol, the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian defence ministry as saying on Tuesday.
The defence ministry added that Russian forces in Ukraine had introduced a "silent regime" from 7am (Irish time), Interfax reported.
However, the head of the UN refugee agency warned that after the first wave of refugees from Ukraine, there is likely to be a second wave consisting of more vulnerable people.
"If the war continues, we will start seeing people that have no resources and no connections," UNHCR head Filippo Grandi told a news conference.
"That will be a more complex situation to manage for European countries going forward, and there will need to be even more solidarity by everybody in Europe and beyond," he said.
7.47am: British defence minister Ben Wallace said on Tuesday that Britain would support Poland if it decided to provide Ukraine with fighter jets, but warned that doing so might have direct consequences for Poland.
"I would support the Poles and whatever choice they make," Mr Wallace told Sky News, adding the UK could not offer aircraft that the Ukrainians would be able to use.
"We would protect Poland, we'll help them with anything that they need," he said. "Poland will understand that the choices they make will not only directly help Ukraine, which is a good thing, but also may bring them into direct line of fire from countries such as Russia or Belarus."
Mr Wallace also said Russia's president Vladimir Putin is a spent force in the world whatever happens in Ukraine, adding: "The international community has united against him … he is in a position where he is going to cause huge economic hardship to his people."
7.32am: Civilians will start leaving the besieged Ukrainian city of Sumy on Tuesday under an agreement with Russia on the establishment of a "humanitarian corridor", Ukrainian deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
"It has been agreed that the first convoy will start at 10am (8am Irish time) from the city of Sumy. The convoy will be followed by the local population in personal vehicles," she said in a televised statement.
6.30am: Russia's offensive in Ukraine continued but at a significantly slower pace on Tuesday and a second senior Russian commander had been killed, Ukrainian military and intelligence said, as frightened residents fled bombed-out cities.
In the city of Irpin, on the northwest edge of Kyiv, residents ran with their young children in strollers, or cradling babies in arms, while others carried pet carriers and plastic bags and suitcases.
"It's like a disaster, the city is almost ruined, and the district where I'm living, it's like there are no houses which were not bombed," said one young mother, holding a baby beneath a blanket, while her daughter stood by her side.
"Yesterday was the hardest bombing, and the lights and sound is so scary, and the whole building is shaking."
Ukraine's military intelligence said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces killed a Russian general near the besieged city of Kharkiv, the second Russian senior commander to die in the invasion.
Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, first deputy commander of Russia's 41st army, was killed on Monday, the chief directorate of intelligence of Ukraine's defence ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine's general staff of the armed forces said the Russian offensive continues although at a significantly slower pace.
Russia's defence ministry could not be immediately reached for comment and Reuters could not verify the reports.
Russia's invasion, the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two, has created 1.7 million refugees, a raft of sanctions on Moscow, and fears of wider conflict as the West pours military aid into Ukraine.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" that it says is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its southern neighbour's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists.
Kyiv has rejected Moscow's offer of possible humanitarian corridors to Russia and Belarus.
However, Moscow has since proposed giving the residents of the cities of Sumy and Mariupol the choice of moving elsewhere in Ukraine on Tuesday, setting a deadline in the early hours for Kyiv to agree, Russian news agencies reported.
After the third attempt to ease the bloodshed at talks in Belarus, negotiators warned not to expect the next round to bring a final result. The Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers are expected to meet in Turkey on Thursday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters Moscow would halt operations if Ukraine ceased fighting, amended its constitution to declare neutrality, and recognised Russia's annexation of Crimea and the independence of regions held by Russian-backed separatists.
Russian warning
Fears of an energy war between Russia and the West grew on Tuesday after the United States pushed its allies to ban Russian oil imports as punishment for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Russia warned it could stop the flow of gas through pipelines from Russia to Germany in response to Berlin's decision last month to halt the opening of the controversial new Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Russia supplies 40 per cent of Europe's gas.
"We have every right to take a matching decision and impose an embargo on gas pumping through the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline," Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said on Monday.
Mr Novak also warned that oil prices could more than double to $300 (€276) a barrel if the United States and its allies banned imports of Russian oil, a crucial source of revenue after the country was effectively frozen out of Western financial markets.
Analysts at Bank of America however said that if most of Russia's oil exports were cut off there could be a shortfall of 5 million barrels per day or more, pushing prices as high as $200 (€184). Oil prices see-sawed near 14-year highs on Tuesday, with Brent crude LCOc1 futures up $1.06 (€0.97), or 0.9 per cent, at $124.27 (€144.44) a barrel at 2.25am (Irish time), after trading as high as $125.19 (€115.29).
US president Joe Biden held a video conference call with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain on Monday as he pushed for their support to ban Russian oil imports.
But if need be, the United States was willing to move ahead without allies in Europe, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Many countries on the continent are heavily reliant on Russian energy.
Japan tightened its sanctions on Tuesday, freezing the assets of an additional 32 Russian and Belarusian officials and executives of companies with close ties to the government.
Estee Lauder Companies joined a long list of firms exiting Russia, suspending all commercial activities and closing all its stores in the country.
A senior US defence official said Russian president Vladimir Putin had now deployed nearly 100 per cent of the more than 150,000 forces that he had pre-staged outside Ukraine before the invasion.
A Russian strike on a bread factory killed 13 in the town of Makariv in the Kyiv region, Ukrainian officials said. Reuters could not verify the details. Russia denies targeting civilians.
In the encircled southern port city of Mariupol, hundreds of thousands of people remained trapped without food and water under regular bombardments.
