Russia’s deputy minister of foreign affairs Andrei Rudenko, Russia’s deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin (3rd left seated) and Ukrainian parliament member Davyd Arakhamia (3rd right seated) are seen during Russian-Ukrainian talks in Gomel, Belarus. Photograph: Alexander Kryazhev/TASS
• Talks between Ukraine and Russia got under way on the border with Belarus this morning. Ukraine had agreed to talks with Russia “without preconditions”, the office of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said yesterday.
• Recent British intelligence appears to corroborate a recent report from Ukraine’s military that Russia had “slowed down” its offensive. Britain’s defence ministry has said Russia’s advance on Kyiv has been slowed by logistical failures and fierce Ukrainian resistance.
• The Russian central bank has increased interest rates to 20% from 9.5% after the rouble plunged up to 40% on Monday in the wake of western sanctions.
• The EU is expecting Ukraine’s application to join the European Union “imminently” and officials in Brussels said “this will need to be assessed very rapidly by the council and the decision made as to whether to request an urgent opinion from the European Commission”.
• Residents in Mariupol this morning said the port city on the Sea of Azov was surrounded by Russian forces and under heavy attack.
• Amnesty International has condemned Russia’s reported use of cluster munitions in Ukraine, saying an attack on a pre-school “may constitute a war crime”.
• Russian invasion forces seized two small cities in south-eastern Ukraine and the area around a nuclear power plant, the Interfax news agency reported on Monday, but ran into stiff resistance elsewhere as Moscow’s diplomatic and economic isolation deepened.
• The UK government announced a slew of measures “to prohibit any UK natural or legal persons from undertaking financial transactions involving the Russian central bank, the Russian national wealth fund, and the country’s ministry of finance”.
• The Russian rouble plunged nearly 30% to an all-time low versus the US dollar on Monday as markets opened for trading on the first day after western nations announced punishing economic sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
• The US stepped up the flow of weapons to Ukraine, announcing on Sunday it will send Stinger missiles as part of a package approved by the White House.
• At least 102 civilians in Ukraine have been killed since Russia launched its invasion last Thursday, with a further 304 injured, but the real figure is feared to be “considerably higher”, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Monday.
• An update from Ukraine’s interior ministry late last night said 352 Ukrainian civilians have so far been killed during Russia’s invasion, including 14 children.The ministry said a further 1,684 people, including 116 children, have been wounded.
• Blasts were heard in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and in the major city of Kharkiv early on Monday morning, Ukraine’s state service of special communications reported. Meanwhile, about 150km north-east of Kyiv in Chernihiv, a missile reportedly hit a residential building in the centre of the city, causing a fire to break out, the agency added.
• About 800 people were arrested as Belarus voted to ditch its non-nuclear status in a referendum that raises the stakes at a time when the country has become a staging ground for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the government said on Monday.
• Forty Ukrainian civil society groups have come together to call on the West to establish safe zones for refugees inside Ukraine, and provide technology to help document Russian war crimes as part of a plan to make Vladimir Putin and his inner circle face justice at the international criminal court. (Courtesy the Guardian of the UK)
Russia has closed its airspace to 36 countries, Russian state news agency Tass reports.
• Among those countries barred from using Russian airspace are the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Canada.
• The US has suspended operations at its embassy in Minsk, Belarus, and non-emergency employees and family members are being authorised to voluntarily depart the US embassy in Moscow.
• In a statement on Monday, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said the decision was taken “due to security and safety issues stemming from the unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces in Ukraine”.
• The Kremlin has claimed that President Vladimir Putin placed Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert after statements from the UK’s foreign secretary Liz Truss, PA Media news agency reports.
• According to the Interfax news agency, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a press briefing:
Statements were made by various representatives at various levels on possible altercations or even collisions and clashes between Nato and Russia. We believe that such statements are absolutely unacceptable.
I would not call the authors of these statements by name, although it was the British foreign minister.
• The website of Russian state news agency Tass was hacked on Monday with the site replaced with messages claiming Russian president Vladimir Putin is forcing them to lie, Reuters reports.
According to Reuters, the message read:
We urge you to stop this madness, do not send your sons and husbands to certain death.
Putin is forcing us to lie and is putting us in danger … It’s not our war, let’s stop him!
The message has since been removed. The website now says: “Sorry, the page you are looking for is currently unavailable. Please try again later.”
Dozens killed and hundreds wounded in Kharkiv rocket strikes, Ukrainian ministry says
• Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds more wounded in rocket strikes by Russian forces on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Monday morning, the Ukrainian interior ministry has said.
Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said in a post on Facebook:
Kharkiv has just been massively fired upon by grads (rockets). Dozens of dead and hundreds of wounded.
Roman Abramovich has accepted a Ukrainian request to help negotiate an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, his spokesperson has said.
A spokesperson for the Chelsea football club owner said:
I can confirm that Roman Abramovich was contacted by the Ukrainian side for support in achieving a peaceful resolution, and that he has been trying to help ever since.
Considering what is at stake, we would ask for your understanding as to why we have not commented on neither the situation as such nor his involvement.
The Jerusalem Post reports that Abramovich is in Belarus assisting in the Ukraine-Russia talks, at the request of Ukraine.
