What you need to know right now:
- Russia struck Ukraine with cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, and launched hypersonic missiles from Crimean airspace, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday.
- The city council in the besieged port city of Mariupol said Russian forces bombed an art school where about 400 residents had taken shelter. There was no immediate word of casualties, and Reuters could not independently verify the claim.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia's siege of Mariupol was "a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come".
- Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said seven humanitarian corridors would open on Sunday to enable civilians to leave frontline areas.
- Zelenskiy has signed a decree that combines all national TV channels into one platform, citing the importance of a "unified information policy" under martial law, his office said in a statement.
- The UN human rights office said at least 847 civilians had been killed and 1,399 wounded in Ukraine as of Friday. The Ukrainian prosecutor general's office said that 112 children have been killed.
- After US President Joe Biden warned of "consequences" if China provided material support to Russia's war effort, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing has "always stood for maintaining peace and opposing war" and that "time will prove that China's claims are on the right side of history".
- Ukraine may not produce enough crops to export if this year's sowing campaigns are disrupted by the invasion, presidential adviser Oleh Ustenko said on Saturday.
9.20pm: Management of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986, said that 50 staff members who had been on the job since the plant was seized by Russian forces on February 24th have been rotated out and replaced.
Officials had repeatedly expressed alarm that the staff were suffering from exhaustion after weeks of forced, unrelieved work.
8pm: Russia on Sunday called on Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms in the eastern port city of Mariupol where Moscow said a "terrible humanitarian catastrophe" was unfolding.
"Lay down your arms," Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, the director of the Russian National Center for Defense Management, said in a briefing distributed by the defence ministry.
"A terrible humanitarian catastrophe has developed," Mizintsev said. "All who lay down their arms are guaranteed safe passage out of Mariupol."
Mariupol has suffered some of the heaviest bombardment since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th. Many of its 400,000 residents remain trapped in the city with little if any food, water and power.
Mizintsev said humanitarian corridors for civilians would be opened eastwards and westwards out of Mariupol at 10am Moscow time (0700 GMT) on Monday.
Ukraine has until 5am Moscow time to respond to the offer on humanitarian corridors and laying down arms, he said.
Russia and Ukraine have traded blame for the failure to open such corridors in recent weeks.
7.20pm: Russian and Ukrainian forces fought for control of the port city of Mariupol on Sunday, local authorities said, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to Israel for help in pushing back the Russian assault on his country.
In the latest in a series of appeals he has made for help from abroad, Zelenskiy addressed the Israeli parliament by video link and questioned Israel's reluctance to sell its Iron Dome missile defence system to Ukraine.
"Everybody knows that your missile defence systems are the best... and that you can definitely help our people, save the lives of Ukrainians, of Ukrainian Jews," said Zelenskiy, who is of Jewish heritage.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has held numerous calls with both Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to end the conflict.
Mariupol has suffered some of the heaviest bombardment since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th. Many of its 400,000 residents remain trapped in the city with little if any food, water and power.
Fighting continued inside the city on Sunday, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said, without elaborating.
The Russian governor of Sevastopol, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, said on Sunday that Post Captain Andrei Paliy, deputy commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, had been killed during fighting in Mariupol.
Capturing Mariupol would help Russian forces secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The city council said on its Telegram channel late on Saturday that several thousand residents had been "deported" to Russia over the past week. Russian news agencies said buses had carried hundreds of people Moscow calls refugees from Mariupol to Russia in recent days.
7.10pm: The Government is to start the process of moving Ukrainian refugees in with Irish families, Roderic O’Gorman said.
The Minister for Children said that vacant properties will be used first to house Ukrainians fleeing the war.
Around 20,000 offers of accommodation have been pledged by Irish people, including from Tánaiste Leo Varadkar.
Mr O’Gorman said that 9,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Ireland, and the vast majority are staying in hotels.
7pm: Accounts that thousands of residents of Ukraine's besieged port city of Mariupol have been forcibly deported to Russia are "disturbing" and "unconscionable" if true, US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Sunday.
Speaking on CNN's State of the Union, Thomas-Greenfield said the United States had not yet confirmed the allegations made on Saturday by the Mariupol city council via its Telegram channel.
"I've only heard it. I can't confirm it," she said. "But I can say it is disturbing. It is unconscionable for Russia to force Ukrainian citizens into Russia and put them in what will basically be concentration and prisoner camps."
Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, igniting a conflict that has led to more than 900 civilian deaths and nearly 1,500 injuries as of March 19, according to the UN human rights office.
6.45pm: A UK-based couple have hired out an entire hotel in Poland to create a hub for refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Jakub and Gosia Golata, who immigrated to the UK in 2004, have teamed up with the Polish arm of the Sue Ryder charity to take over the Park Hotel Tryszczyn near Bydgoszcz, where Ukrainians can come to stay while they are placed with local host families.
Mr Golata, 42, told the PA news agency he was keen to take immediate action because help was not getting to the right places quickly enough.
6.30pm: Patriotic messages in the form of tattoos and billboards have become popular in war-torn Ukraine.
The Ukrainian flag and other symbols are favoured additions for customers at a tattoo parlour in Lviv.
Olena Barlevych, 18, recently had a tattoo of the Ukrainian coat of arms with a military aircraft, symbolising the fight to defend her country.
“This tattoo means a lot to us,” Ms Barlevych said. “It is a very important phase for our country, which must go down in history, which must be passed on to future generations.”
Artist Natalia Tanchynets has seen clients come in from several parts of Ukraine for similar tattoos. She said 70 per cent of the proceeds from her patriotic tattoos are donated to the Ukrainian army.
5.15pm: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Israel would have to live with the choices it makes on whether to help protect Ukraine against the Russian invasion, addressing the Knesset via video link.
Drawing comparisons between the Russian offensive and the "final solution" - the plan by Nazi Germany to exterminate Jews - Zelenskiy questioned Israel's reluctance to sell the Iron Dome defence system to Ukraine.
"Everybody knows that your missile defence systems are the best… and that you can definitely help our people, save the lives of Ukrainians, of Ukrainian Jews," he said.
"We can ask why we can’t receive weapons from you, why Israel has not imposed powerful sanctions on Russia or is not putting pressure on Russian business. Either way, the choice is yours to make, brothers and sisters, and you must then live with your answer, the people of Israel."
5pm: The John Mitchels GAA Sports Complex in Tralee has been placed on standby as a centre for short term accommodation for Ukrainian refugees, it has been confirmed.
A spokesman for Kerry County Council said agreement has been reached with council management which is coordinating transport and other services for refugees to use the large modern sports hall for overnight accommodation “in the event of no hotel beds being available”.
Three hotels and a hostel in Kerry have already closed to guests after they entered agreements with IPPS, The International Protection Procurement Services arm of the Department of Children, the agency handling accommodation for refugees.
4.55pm: An art school where about 400 people had taken refuge in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol has been bombed by the Russian military, according to officials in the area.
Local authorities said on Sunday that the school building was destroyed and people may be trapped under the rubble. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Russian forces had on Wednesday bombed a theatre in Mariupol where civilians took shelter. Local officials said 130 people were rescued but many more could remain under the debris.
4.00pm: Some 10,000 people attended a concert in solidarity with Ukraine in Berlin on Sunday, police said, with the crowd waving Ukrainian flags or holding banners with slogans opposing the Russian invasion.
Gathering near the Brandenburg Gate, symbol of a divided Germany during the Cold War, many performers on the stage wore shades of blue and yellow, the colours of the flag. Musicians included Natalia Klitschko, a Ukrainian singer who is married to the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko.
Jamala, a Ukrainian singer who won the Eurovision Song Contest with her song "1944" in 2016, was broadcast via videolink on a big screen, telling attendees that "music is a peaceful force".
"I think if all the musicians united it would be the strongest peace army in the world," she said to the crowd, listening under clear blue skies.
3.30pm: Accounts that thousands of residents of Ukraine's besieged port city of Mariupol have been forcibly deported to Russia are "disturbing" and "unconscionable" if true, US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Sunday.
Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," Thomas-Greenfield said the United States had not yet confirmed the allegations made on Saturday by the Mariupol city council via its Telegram channel.
"I've only heard it. I can't confirm it," she said. "But I can say it is disturbing. It is unconscionable for Russia to force Ukrainian citizens into Russia and put them in what will basically be concentration and prisoner camps."
2.50pm: Officials in central Europe voiced concern on Sunday that they were reaching capacity to comfortably house some of the nearly 3.5 million refugees who have fled Ukraine since Russia's invasion and are now camped in temporary accommodation.
Most of the Ukrainians have arrived at border points in Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary, data compiled by the UN refugee agency shows, putting pressure on the European Union countries now attempting to shelter them.
Czech Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said the government would seek to extend a state of emergency to deal with the influx, with officials trying to relocate new arrivals to cities outside the capital Prague to ease the pressure.
2.30pm: Fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces is going on inside the eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a televised interview on Sunday.
Many of Mariupol's 400,000 residents have been trapped for more than two weeks as Russia seeks to take control of the city, which would help secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
1.50pm: At least 902 civilians have been killed and 1,459 injured in Ukraine as of midnight local time on March 19th, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Sunday.
Most of the casualties were from explosive weapons such as shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes, OHCHR said.
The actual toll is thought to be considerably higher since OHCHR, which has a large monitoring team in the country, has not yet been able to receive or verify casualty reports from several badly hit cities including Mariupol, it said.
1.20pm: Sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine are hurting its economy and President Vladimir Putin, France's finance minister said on Sunday, adding that banning Russian oil and gas imports into the European Union remained an option for Paris.
"They're hurting the Russian state and they're hurting Vladimir Putin," Bruno Le Maire told LCI television in an interview.
Le Maire said: "Should we in the immediate stop buying Russian oil, should a little bit further down the line we stop importing Russian gas? The president has never ruled out these options."
12.30pm: The front lines between Ukrainian and Russian forces are “practically frozen” as Russia does not have enough combat strength to advance further, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in a video address on Sunday.
“(Over the past day) there were practically no rocket strikes on (Ukrainian) cities,” Arestovych added.
11.50am: Pope Francis on Sunday called the conflict in Ukraine an unjustified "senseless massacre" and asked leaders to stop "this repugnant war".
"The violent aggression against Ukraine is unfortunately not slowing down," he told tens of thousands of people in St Peter's Square for his weekly Sunday address and blessing.
"It is a senseless massacre where every day slaughters and atrocities are being repeated," he said.
11.01am: Thousands of residents in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol have been taken by force across the border to Russia, its city council said.
"Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported onto the Russian territory," the city council said in a statement on its Telegram channel late on Saturday.
Russian news agencies have said buses have carried several hundred people Moscow calls refugees from Mariupol to Russia in recent days.
Many of Mariupol's 400,000 residents have been trapped for more than two weeks as Russia seeks to take control of the city, which would help secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the siege of Mariupol was a war crime. "To do this to a peaceful city... is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come," he said in a late night broadcast.
10.50am: Ukraine sees a high risk of an attack launched from Belarus on the Volyn region, which lies immediately to the north of the capital Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office said on Sunday.
It was not immediately clear whether Ukraine saw the threat of an attack on Volyn from Russian forces or the Belarusian military.
While Belarus is a close ally of Putin's and has served as a staging post for Russian forces, it has so far not publicly committed troops to supporting Russia.
10.30am: Some Syrian paramilitary fighters say they are ready to deploy to Ukraine to fight in support of their ally Russia but have not yet received instructions to go.
Nabil Abdallah, a commander in the paramilitary National Defence Forces (NDF), said he was ready to use expertise in urban combat gained during the Syrian war to aid Russia, speaking to Reuters by phone from the Syrian town of Suqaylabiyah.
"Once we get instructions from the Syrian and Russian leadership, we will fight this righteous war," Abdallah said four days after President Vladimir Putin gave a green light for 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East to deploy in Ukraine.
9.38am: Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said seven humanitarian corridors would open on Sunday to enable civilians to leave frontline areas.
Ukraine has evacuated a total of 190,000 people from such areas since the Russian invasion began on February 24th, Vereshchuk said on Saturday, though Ukraine and Russia blame each other for hobbling the process.
9.15am: Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Hurriyet daily that Russia and Ukraine were getting closer to an agreement on "critical" issues and have nearly agreed on some subjects.
Cavusoglu also said that he was hopeful for a ceasefire if the sides do not take a step back from the progress they have made towards an agreement.
8.45am: Russia struck Ukraine with cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, and launched hypersonic missiles from Crimean airspace, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday.
Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Russia had carried out strikes against Ukraine's military infrastructure on Saturday night and Sunday morning.
Kalibr cruise missiles were launched from the waters of the Black Sea against the Nizhyn plant that repairs Ukrainian armoured vehicles damaged in fighting, he said.
Russia also fired Kalibr cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea and hypersonic Kinzhal (Dagger) missiles from airspace of Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, to destroy a fuel storage facility used by the Ukrainian military.
Russia also hit a Ukrainian military preparation centre where foreign fighters joining Kyiv's forces were based.
The strike marked the second day in a row that Russia has used the Kinzhal, a weapon capable of striking targets 1,250 miles away at a speed 10 times the speed of sound.
8.15am: Russian forces have bombed an art school in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, where about 400 residents had taken shelter, the city council said on Sunday.
There was no immediate word of casualties from the Saturday attack, although the council said the building was destroyed and there were victims under the rubble. Reuters could not independently verify the claim.
