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Russia’s central bank has imposed a 30% commission on foreign currency purchases by individuals on currency exchanges, brokers told Reuters, citing a letter from the regulator.

The central bank did not immediately reply to the news agency to a request for comment.

Heartbreaking images have emerged of Ukrainians fleeing their country en route to Poland.

More than one million people have fled Ukraine since Russian forces invaded the country last week, the head of the United Nations refugee agency has said.

Many have made the journey by bus.

The Russian Federal Security Service leaked information that alerted Ukraine to an assassination plot against president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to the cyber-hacking collective Anonymous.

In a recently published tweet, the group said: Russian FSB leaked information alerted Ukraine to assassination plot against President @ZelenskyyUa. Now, we can expect an internal power struggle within the Kremlin to overthrow the Putin regime. In the meantime, let’s continue with the attacks,” the tweet read.

Anonymous also claimed responsibility for taking down the Russian Space Agency website for a second time.

The United States has accused Russia of launching a “full war on media freedom and the truth” by blocking independent news outlets and preventing Russians from hearing news of the invasion of Ukraine.

The US State Department said in a statement as reported by Reuters:

Russia’s government is also throttling Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram platforms that tens of millions of Russia’s citizens rely on to access independent information and opinions.”

Russians also used social media to connect to each other and the outside world, it added.

The agency called on Putin and the Russian government to immediately “cease this bloodshed” and withdraw troops from Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities are assuring citizens that any Russian military equipment they seize won’t need to be declared for tax purposes.

“Have you captured a Russian tank or armoured personnel carrier and are worried about how to declare it? Keep calm and continue to defend the motherland!” Ukraine’s National Agency for the Protection against Corruption (NAPC) said, according to the Ukraine arm of the Interfax news service.

The agency went on to explain there was “no need to declare the captured Russian tanks and other equipment, because the cost of this ... does not exceed 100 living wages (UAH248,100) ($8,298).”

Australian police are investigating a suspicious package that was delivered to the Russian embassy in Canberra.

Police and Hazmat crews were called to the embassy just after 10am on Thursday and cordoned off the area around the embassy.

The ABC has reported that someone sent white powder in an envelope to the Russian embassy.

In a statement ACT policing said:

About 10.05am this morning, ACT Policing and ACT emergency services were called to a suspicious package incident at the Russian Embassy in Griffith.

The contents of the package are currently being assessed.

A cordon is in place and the public is urged to avoid the area until further notice.

The embassy had been site of protests in recent days, following Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine last week.

Volodymyr Ksienich, 22, has returned to Ukraine to join the defence of Kyiv. He tells the Guardian’s Michael Safi how his life changed forever after last week’s Russian invasion

Ksienich decided to leave his job working for an NGO in Warsaw to return to his Ukrainian homeland in its hour of crisis.

He describes how he and his father joined a territorial support unit in Kyiv where he has been learning to operate an automatic rifle, spending nights in the woods preparing to repel a Russian attack.

He says he has no ill will towards ordinary Russians but that he will not shirk from his duty if he is forced to defend himself. And he is calling on Europe to maintain the pressure on Vladimir Putin.

Listen to this fascinating report below.

The US Treasury Secretary added that sanctions imposed last Sunday and Monday have so far restricted 80% of the Russian banking sector’s assets and “immobilised” about half of the Russian central bank’s assets, according to remarks cited by Reuters news agency.

The rouble, which has lost about a third of its value since the start of the year, touched a fresh record low of 110 to the dollar in Moscow on Wednesday.

The former chair of the US Federal Reserve said she knew there were concerns about members of Russia’s elite using cryptocurrencies as a possible means to evade sanctions, but noted there were anti-money laundering laws in place to prevent that from happening.

The Treasury will continue to “go after oligarchs or Russian elites who are key to President Putin’s corrupt power,” she said.
Washington is preparing a sanctions package targeting more Russian oligarchs as well as their companies and assets, two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The United States will address potential gaps in tough sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Wednesday, adding the measures would “continue to bite.”

Yellen said financial sanctions on the Russian central bank, commercial banks and members of the country’s wealthy elite were having a significant impact, as demonstrated by the rouble’s sharp fall, Reuters reports.

After visiting Chicago’s Ukrainian Village neighbourhood, Yellen spoke at the University of Illinois-Chicago:

Russia is increasingly an economic island.

We will continue to look at how the sanctions work and whether there are leakages and we have the possibility to address them.”

Asked whether sanctions to curb Russia’s oil and gas exports could follow, she said “nothing is off the table,” but added that the United States had not taken this step to spare Americans, Europeans and other people around the world from “punishing consequences.”

A British pub landlord has arrived in Ukraine with a minibus of aid after a 1,000-mile (1,600km) journey from the UK, the BBC reports.

Tom Littledyke, a former Royal Marine, set off from Dorset in south-west England on Monday before dropping supplies in Poland and then driving over the border to Lviv in western Ukraine.

He is now using his 16-seater minibus to ferry people from the city’s train station back to the Polish border.

Japan will accept Ukrainian refugees forced to flee their homes by the Russian invasion, the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has said.

The move is being seen as a break with Japan’s reluctance to accept refugees and asylum seekers - it approves just a few dozen applications a year - with Kishida describing the offer as a “demonstration of solidarity with the Ukrainian people at such a crucial moment”.

It is not clear how many Ukrainians would consider taking refuge in Japan or how long they would be permitted to stay. Kishida, speaking to reporters after a call with the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said those with relatives or friends in Japan would be given priority.

“But we will not stop there and will respond [to other applications] from a humanitarian perspective,” he said.

“The Ukrainian situation is tense, and refugees are growing in large numbers. We will make preparations to cope with this situation as soon as possible.”

Ukrainian refugees would not be counted among the 5,000 people, including returning citizens, permitted to enter Japan daily under its Covid-19 border restrictions.

In 2020, Japan accepted just 47 refugees and 44 people on humanitarian grounds out of nearly 4,000 applicants. Rights groups have long accused Tokyo of doing too little to help those fleeing conflict.

Seven military personnel died after their helicopter crashed in eastern Romania near the Black Sea while searching for a missing fighter jet and its pilot, according to Ukraine’s ministry of defence.

The IAR 330-Puma helicopter crashed in the area of Gura Dobrogei, 11km (7 miles) from the airfield on Wednesday, killing all seven people aboard, Agence France-Presse reports.

It was searching for a MiG 21 LanceR, shortly after the fighter jet lost radio contact with the control tower during an air patrol mission and disappeared from the radar.

“Search and rescue operations for the pilot of the MiG 21 LanceR aircraft are still ongoing,” a statement from the defence ministry said.

Authorities are still investigating the cause of the helicopter crash.

The helicopter pilot had reported adverse weather conditions and had been ordered to return to base, according to the ministry.

“It is premature to discuss possible causes. Certainly, there were unfavourable weather conditions, but we can’t comment now,” spokesman General Constantin Spanu said on local television.

“We have two commissions of inquiry set up. Our focus is on the search and rescue operation.”

Four Russian fighter jets briefly entered Swedish territory over the Baltic Sea on Wednesday, the Swedish Armed Forces said, sparking a swift condemnation from Sweden’s defence minister.

Sweden’s Armed Forces said in a statement:

On 2 March, four Russian fighter aircraft violated Swedish airspace. The Swedish air force conducted an operation with JAS 39 Gripen aircraft of the rapid readiness unit, which documented and photographed the incident.

Two Russian SU27 and two SU24 fighter jets briefly entered Swedish airspace east of the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, the military said.

Air Force Commander Edström said:

With the current situation as backdrop, we take this incident very seriously. Russia’s conduct is unprofessional and irresponsible.”

The flight was also picked up on FlightRadar, according to a live flight tracking update.

US secretary of defence Lloyd Austin has warned against any rhetoric about the employment of nuclear weapons.

In an interview with NBC on Wednesday, Austin was asked if he has seen any actions backing up President Vladimir Putin’s recent statements regarding Russia’s nuclear weapons.

Any rhetoric about the employment of nuclear weapons is dangerous, and I think we should avoid that if at all possible. It creates the climate, it creates the conditions for gross miscalculations, and we don’t want to see that happen.

Putin placed his strategic forces, including nuclear weapons, on a heightened state of alert over the weekend.

Explosions are being reported in Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday following Russian airstrikes.

At least four explosions were reported in Ukraine’s capital city around 3am on Thursday.

Ukraine’s state special communications service also issued an alarm just before 3am, writing: “Air alarm, Kyiv!”

Two blasts reportedly went off in the city centre, followed by two more near a metro station. Air raid sirens have been heard wailing.

In an update posted to his Facebook page late last night, city mayor Vitali Klitschko thanked his citizens for their endurance and reminded people to stay at home or in shelters.

“In the city, in some areas in the yards, several shells got in,” Klitschko said, adding some people were injured in the blasts as cars caught fire.

“Fighting took place next to Kyiv - Bucha, Irpin, Gostomel. The enemy is trying to break into the capital,” he added.

The Biden administration is considering ways to reduce US consumption of Russian oil to punish Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh said during an interview with CNN on Wednesday.

“We are looking at ways to cut US consumption of Russian oil while still maintaining the global supply of energy,” Singh said.

Ukrainians working at western tech companies are banding together to help their besieged homeland, aiming to knock down disinformation websites, encourage Russians to turn against their government and speed delivery of medical supplies, Reuters reports.

They are seeking, through email campaigns and online petitions, to persuade firms such as internet security company Cloudflare Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Amazon.com Inc to do more to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Companies should try to isolate Russia as much as possible, as soon as possible,” said Olexiy Oryeshko, a staff software engineer at Google and a Ukrainian American. “Sanctions are not enough.”

He was one of nine tech activists interviewed by Reuters who are of Ukrainian heritage or are Ukrainian immigrants and are responding to a call by Kyiv to form a volunteer “IT army”.

Many companies have severed Russian ties due to new government trade curbs, but the activists are demanding more.

They are appealing to cybersecurity companies in particular, asking them to drop Russian clients, especially publishers of what they say is disinformation. If that happens, the publishers would be more vulnerable to online attacks.

Footage has emerged on social media showing a group of children detained by Moscow police after demonstrating against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In a video posted to Facebook by Alexandra Arkhipova, a young girl is seen in tears holding a woman’s hand from behind bars.

Thousands of people in cities across Russia have been defying police threats and staging protests against the invasion of Ukraine.

Watch the video below.

More information has come to light regarding reports from senior Chinese officials who allegedly spoke with Russian officials regarding a Ukraine invasion.

Senior Chinese officials told senior Russian officials in early February not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, the New York Times reported, quoting Biden administration officials and a European official who cited a western intelligence report.

The New York Times said the intelligence report indicated senior Chinese officials had some level of knowledge about Russia’s plans or intentions to invade Ukraine before Moscow launched the operation last week.

A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters that China had made the request but declined to provide details. The source declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

“The claims mentioned in the relevant reports are speculations without any basis, and are intended to blame-shift and smear China,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington.

Russian police have also reportedly detained a well-known survivor of the Siege of Leningrad, Yelena Osipova, at an anti-war protest in St Petersburg.

Video of Osipova’s arrest, which has so far been viewed more than 3.7million times, shows two officers removing the 77-year-old artist and activist from the crowd as hundreds of others condemn the officers.

Thousands of people in cities across Russia have been defying police threats and staging protests against the invasion of Ukraine. Authorities have a low tolerance for demonstrations and marches, and attending them can have serious consequences including fines, arrests and even imprisonment

Police in Moscow detained two women and five children who wanted to lay flowers at the Ukrainian embassy.

Photographs of their detention showed the children holding a poster saying “No to War.”

The children, aged 7 to 11, were held with their mothers in a police van before being taken to a police station. They were released hours later, according to anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova.

Arkhipova said that the two women detained were Ekaterina Zavizion and Olga Alter along with Liza, 11, Gosha, 11, Matvey, 9, David, 7, and Sofya, 7.

The anthropologist, who works at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, wrote on Facebook: “None of what’s happened is holding up in my head.”

Russia has been turfed out of the indexes used by many fund managers to decide where to invest after provider MSCI declared the country “uninvestable”.

The decision is likely to result in the wholesale dumping of Russian shares by western investors.

Many have already pledged to sell out of Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, but the process has been made more difficult because the Moscow stock exchange has been closed all week.

In a statement, MSCI said the decision followed consultation with institutional investors and will take effect from next Wednesday.

During the consultation, MSCI received feedback from a large number of global market participants, including asset owners, asset managers, broker dealers, and exchanges with an overwhelming majority confirming that the Russian equity market is currently uninvestable and that Russian securities should be removed from the MSCI Emerging Markets Indexes.

Consultation participants highlighted several recent negative developments that led to a material deterioration in the accessibility of the Russian equity market to international institutional investors, to such an extent that it does not meet the Market Accessibility requirements for Emerging Markets classification as per the MSCI Market Classification Framework.”

MSCI said it would maintain a standalone index of the Russian market.

Netflix has paused all future Russian projects and acquisitions as a result of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

According to Variety, the streamer is “assessing the impact of current events”, which has led to four Russian original series being indefinitely paused. Zato, a crime series set after the fall of the Soviet Union, directed by the Belarus-born director Darya Zhuk, was already in production but has now been put on hold.

Netflix also has another three series in the pipeline in Russia, including Anna K, based on Anna Karenina. The service launched in the country just over a year ago and is believed to have about 1 million subscribers.

Earlier this week, the company confirmed it would refuse to broadcast Russian state propaganda, in the face of a law that just came into effect. It requires streaming services with more than 100,000 daily users to carry 20 major Russian federal television channels, many of which broadcast Kremlin propaganda.

Hello I’m Samantha Lock back with you as we unpack all the latest developments in Putin’s war against Ukraine.

French president Emmanuel Macron has delivered a message to the Russian people in Russian.

Today we stand side by side with all Russians who do not want this unworthy war to be waged on their behalf, courageously defend peace in the spirit of responsibility, and declare this both in Russia and abroad.

I applaud the courage of the Ukrainian people who are resisting under fire. On behalf of the French, I address to President Zelenskiy the fraternal support of France. He is now the face of honour, freedom and courage.”

We’re continuing to follow developments in Kherson.

According to the New York Times, the city northwest of the Crimean peninsula, has been captured by Russians. The city’s mayor, and US intelligence have contested that it has fully been overtaken.

In a Facebook post, Kherson’s mayor said that “there were armed visitors in the city council”.

“I made no promises to them. i just have nothing to promise. I am only interested in the normal life of our city! I just asked not to shoot people,” he said.

Most recently, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said:“We’re not in a position to call it either way. It appears to us that the Ukrainians are certainly fighting over that town.”

The International Criminal Court has confirmed that it is opening an investigation into the situation in Ukraine.

In a statement, ICC Prosecutor, Karim AA Khan QC writes:

On 28 February, I announced my decision to seek authorisation to open an investigation into the Situation in Ukraine, on the basis of my Office’s earlier conclusions arising from its preliminary examination, and encompassing any new alleged crimes falling within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “the Court”).

In the same statement, I indicated that active investigations by my Office would be significantly expedited if a State Party to the Rome Statute (the “Statute”) were to refer the situation to my Office, as provided in article 14 of the Statute...

I have notified the ICC Presidency a few moments ago of my decision to immediately proceed with active investigations in the Situation. Our work in the collection of evidence has now commenced.

In total, 39 ICC states have referred atrocities for investigation.

The US has delivered hundreds of stinger missiles to Ukraine as part of the $350m aid package the Biden administration announced last week, according to NBC News.

Congressional officials told NBC that the US had delivered more than 200 of the missiles on Monday:

The package also includes Javelin anti-tank missiles and ammunition, both of which the Ukrainian government has said they need to fight off advancing Russian military.

Stinger missiles can be used to shoot down aircraft. During the Cold War, the U.S. government secretly supplied Afghan resistance fighters with stingers to shoot down Russian helicopters over Afghanistan.

Germany announced last weekend that they are sending 500 stinger missiles to Ukraine, as well.

Earlier, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, announced more sanctions on Russia, this time targeting the defence industry as well as widening restrictions on hi-tech exports to Belarus.

“In total, 22 Russian defense-related entities will be designated, including companies that make combat aircraft, infantry fighting vehicles, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare systems - the very systems now being used to assault the Ukrainian people, abuse human rights, violate international humanitarian law,” said Blinken.

“We’re also imposing export controls on Belarus to hold the Lukashenko regime accountable for being a co-belligerent in President Putin’s war of choice. We will choke off Belarus’s ability to import key technologies,” added Blinken.

John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, has been talking to reporters about the US decision to put off a test launch of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.

“We did not take this decision lightly, but instead to demonstrate that we are a responsible nuclear power,” Kirby said. “We’d certainly like to see Moscow reciprocate by taking the temperature down on rhetoric about nuclear posture.”

Kirby also confirmed that US and allied weapons are continuing to be delivered to the Ukrainians. “Security assistance continues to flow, not just from the United States but from many of our allies and partners, and as recently as even just the last 24 hours,” Kirby said. “We are making every effort to get as much security assistance as we can to the Ukrainians, as fast as we can.”

On the stalling of the vast Russian military column that was heading towards Kyiv, Kirby offered three explanations, that the Russians are regrouping and reassessing their tactics, they are having logistics and supply difficulties and thirdly, Ukrainian resistance.

The prized, 512-foot yacht of Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov has been seized by German officials today following sanctions imposed by the EU, reported Forbes’ Giacomo Tognini:

Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov was sanctioned by the European Union on Monday. Two days later, Forbes has learned from three sources in the yacht industry that one of his prized possessions—the 512-foot yacht Dilbar, valued at nearly $600 million—has been seized by German authorities in the northern city of Hamburg.

The ship has been in the Hamburg shipyards of German shipbuilding firm Blohm+Voss since late October for a refitting job. Sources who spoke to Forbes said that the German government froze the asset and that, likely as a result, Blohm+Voss employees who had been working on the yacht didn’t show up to work on Wednesday. Representatives for Blohm+Voss and Usmanov didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Usmanov purchased Dilbar in 2016 for a reported cost of $600 million from German shipbuilder Lürssen, which custom-built it for him over 52 months. The firm calls it “one of the most complex and challenging yachts ever built, in terms of both dimensions and technology.” At 15,917 tons, it’s the world’s largest motor yacht by gross tonnage, and is typically manned by a crew of 96 people. Dilbar boasts the largest swimming pool ever installed on a yacht as well as two helicopter pads, a sauna, a beauty salon, and a gym. Its plush interiors have more than 1,000 sofa cushions and it can host up to 24 people in 12 suites.

Read the full article here (paywall).

The United Nations human rights office confirmed today that 227 civilians have been killed and 525 injured in Ukraine from the start of the conflict through midnight 1 March, but believes the true toll is “considerably higher”, reported Reuters:

“Most of these casualties were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and air strikes,” it said in a statement issued in Geneva a week after Russia’s invasion began.

The U.N. human rights office said it believed that the true toll is “considerably higher”, especially in government-controlled territory in the last days, due to reporting delays in some areas where intensive hostilities have taken place.

The Russian Federation Council is set to hold an unscheduled meeting on Friday, leading to widespread speculation in Moscow that the country might impose martial law.

The introduction of martial law would give the authorities sweeping powers to limit freedom of movement and freedom of speech. Martial law has been introduced in modern Russia.

Tatyana Stanovaya, a prominent Russian political analyst and founder of R.Politik on Wednesday evening tweeted that introducing a martial law would be a “logical scenario.”

“The proclamation of martial law will allow the authorities to introduce military censorship, to increase the secrecy of the state’s activities and the actions of local bodies.”

With the introduction of martial law, the powers of elected bodies, local authorities and officials are automatically extended.

The last time an unscheduled meeting of the Federation Council was called, the body approved President Vladimir Putin permission to use military force outside the country, two days prior to the country’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th.

The Federation Council said it will officially discuss on Friday a package of anti-crisis measures in response to Western sanctions.

Over 6,500 Russians have so far been detained across Russia during anti-war protests, according to the independent monitoring site OVD-Info.

Russia has also seen a widespread crackdown on its independent media since the start of the war. Yesterday, Russia’s prosecutor general ordered the country’s media watchdog to block the liberal Ekho Moskvy radio station and the last remaining opposition television channel Dozhd TV.

The Duma is also set to meet on Friday to discuss a new law that would punish “spreading disinformation about the armed forces of the Russian Federation in any military conflicts” with up to 15 years in prison.

China asked Russia not to invade Ukraine until after the 2022 winter olympics had concluded, revealing that Chinese officials had some knowledge of Putin’s plans for an invasion of Ukraine, reported the New York Times’s Edward Wong and Julian E. Barnes:

A Western intelligence report said senior Chinese officials told senior Russian officials in early February not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, according to senior Biden administration officials and a European official.

The report indicates that senior Chinese officials had some level of knowledge about Russia’s war plans or intentions before the invasion started last week. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met with President Xi Jinping of China in Beijing on Feb. 4 before the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Moscow and Beijing issued a 5,000-word statement at the time declaring that their partnership had “no limits,” denouncing NATO enlargement and asserting that they would establish a new global order with true “democracy.”

The intelligence on the exchange between the Chinese and Russian officials was classified. It was collected by a Western intelligence service and considered credible by officials reviewing it. Senior officials in the United States and allied governments passed it around as they discussed when Mr. Putin might attack Ukraine.

However, different intelligence services had varying interpretations, and it is not clear how widely the information was shared.

Read the full article here (paywall).

Russia’s foreign ministry today denied reports that an American ambassador was expelled, reported Reuters.

Moscow officials said they are currently working on a response following the US’ decision to remove 12 Russian diplomats at the United Nations mission, said RIA news, Reuters further reported.

US officials previously said that the Russian diplomats “abused their privileges” by engaging in espionage that was harmful to national security, calling the expelled diplomats “intelligence operatives.”

Here’s more context on an airstrike reported near Kyiv’s rail station today, from Reuters:

A Russian air strike hit near Kyiv’s southern rail station on Wednesday where thousands of women and children are being evacuated, Ukraine’s state-run railway company Ukrzaliznytsya said in a statement.

The station building suffered minor damage and the number of any casualties was not yet known, it said, adding trains were still operating.

More on blasts heard in Kyiv: In an online post, interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said that a large heating supply service may have been destroyed in a rocket strike near Kyiv’s rail station, possibly leaving parts of Kyiv without heat during freezing temperatures.

Here’s video posted to social media of possible damage to the central heating supply:

An update on meetings between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations: according to Ukraine president Zelenskiy’s office, Ukrainian delegates are currently on their way to a meeting with Russian delegates in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

A powerful explosion was heard near the central rail station of Kyiv today, said Ukraine’s interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko in an online post, reported Reuters.

A Reuters witness in Kyiv also reported hearing the blast, noting that the explosion made the ground shake.

From foreign correspondent Sara Firth:

Britain’s media watchdog Ofcom has launched a further 12 investigations into the news broadcaster RT and said it is considering whether the Russian-backed television channel should retain its licence.

Ofcom’s latest decision brings the total number of probes into the “due impartiality” of programmes on the Russian state-controlled network to 27.

The regulator said:

We are very concerned by the volume of programmes on RT that are raising potential issues under the Broadcasting Code, and as we progress our investigations we are considering whether RT should retain a UK licence.

Roman Abramovich has confirmed he has put Chelsea up for sale and has written off the £1.5bn of loans he has made to the club, Jacob Steinberg reports.

The billionaires Hansjörg Wyss and Todd Boehly are part of a consortium trying to buy the Premier League team.

Sources have said at least one other group is preparing to make an offer this week. There is a sense that a bidding war would help Abramovich maintain some form of leverage and the first move came when Wyss, a Swiss businessman, revealed that he had been invited to join a consortium aiming to own Chelsea.

Abramovich confirmed his plans to sell in a statement on Wednesday evening and said net proceeds from the sale would be donated to a charitable foundation which would be “for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine”. He said he would not be asking for the money he has loaned Chelsea since buying the club in 2003 to be repaid.

Abramovich said:

I have always taken decisions with the club’s best interest at heart. In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the club, as I believe this is in the best interest of the club, the fans, the employees, as well as the club’s sponsors and partners.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, compared the Russian leader Vladimir Putin with Adolf Hitler and urged the world to respond in a resolute and united manner when he spoke at an emergency special session of the UN general assembly on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russian forces appear to have become more aggressive in their targeting of infrastructure inside the Ukrainian capital, a senior US defence official has said.

Though there has been “no appreciable movement” of Russian forces advancing on Kyiv since yesterday, Russia has increased its “missiles and artillery targeting the city,” the official continued.

We’ve observed, certainly as you have all observed, an increase in missiles and artillery that (is) targeting the city and this (increasing) aggressiveness in terms of just the iron that they’re lobbing into the city.

Similarly, while Russian forces are assaulting Chernihiv and Kharkiv, there has been “no appreciable movement by the Russians to take either one”, the official said.

However, Russian forces have made more progress in the south, the official said, noting that Russia claims their troops have taken control of the city of Kherson.

Police in Poland have warned that fake reports of violent crimes being committed by people fleeing Ukraine are circulating on social media after Polish nationalists attacked and abused groups of African, south Asian and Middle Eastern people who had crossed the border last night, Lorenzo Tondo and Emmanuel Akinwotu have reported.

Attackers dressed in black sought out groups of non-white refugees, mainly students who had just arrived in Poland at Przemyśl train station from cities in Ukraine after the Russian invasion. According to the police, three Indians were beaten up by a group of five men, leaving one of them hospitalised.

Around 7pm, these men started to shout and yell against groups of African and Middle Eastern refugees who were outside the train station,

Two Polish journalists from the press agency OKO, who first reported the incident, told the Guardian.

They yelled at them: ‘Go back to the train station! Go back to your country.’

Police intervened and riot officers were deployed after groups of men arrived chanting “Przemyśl always Polish”.

“I was with my friends, buying something to eat outside,” said Sara, 22, from Egypt, a student in Ukraine.

These men came and started to harass a group of men from Nigeria. They wouldn’t let an African boy go inside a place to eat some food. Then they came towards us and yelled: ‘Go back to your country.’

Following the incident, police in Poland warned that groups linked to the far right are already spreading false information about alleged crimes committed by people from Africa and the Middle East fleeing war in Ukraine.

More than 7,000 Russian troops have been killed since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s presidential adviser.

Oleksiy Arestovich, a military adviser to president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in a television briefing that hundreds of Russian servicemen have been taken prisoner, including senior officers.

A Russian army commander was taken to Belarus after being severely wounded, Arestovich said.

Thousands of people in cities across Russia have been defying police threats and staging protests against the invasion of Ukraine.

Authorities have a low tolerance for demonstrations and marches, and attending them can have serious consequences, including fines, mass arrests and even imprisonment.

Despite the crackdown, Apollinaria Oleinikova, along with her husband, Arshak Makichyan, and fellow protester Arina Adju have been attending anti-war rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg since the conflict began.

As the death toll continues to rise, they say they feel like they have no choice but to publicly oppose the Kremlin and stand in solidarity with Ukraine.

A Russian negotiator said a ceasefire is on the agenda in talks between Ukraine and Russia, AFP reports.

Russia expects Ukrainian officials to arrive in Belarus for the next round of peace talks on Thursday morning, Russian news agencies cited Moscow’s negotiator Vladimir Medinsky as saying.

The Russian army is providing a security corridor for the Ukrainian delegation, Russian state news agency Tass cited Medinsky as saying.

Here’s more on the UN General Assembly’s vote condemning Russia’s invasion and calling for it immediately to pull all of its forces out of Ukraine.

Alongside Russia, the countries that voted against the UN resolution were Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria.

Thirty-five countries abstained in the vote, including China and India.

The United Nations has voted overwhelmingly for a resolution deploring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for the immediate withdrawal of its forces, in a global expression of outrage that highlighted Russia’s increasing isolation, Julian Borger writes.

In an emergency session of the UN’s general assembly, 141 of the 193 member states voted for the resolution, 35 abstained and five voted against.

The resolution, which was co-sponsored by 94 countries, said the UN “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”. It demanded that “the Russian Federation immediately cease its use of force against Ukraine” and “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces”.

The resolution is not legally binding, but is an expression of the views of the UN membership, aimed at increasing pressure on Moscow and its ally, Belarus.

On Friday, Russia was the sole vote against a similar resolution in the security council, but because Russia is one of the five powers with a veto, the resolution was not upheld, so Ukraine’s allies referred the matter to the general assembly.

It is first time in 40 years, the security council has referred a crisis to the assembly and only the 11th time an emergency session of the UN general assembly has been called since 1950.

It was summoned under a “uniting for peace” resolution, in which global threats are referred to the body “if the security council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility to act as required to maintain international peace and security”.

Russia’s defence ministry said 498 Russian soldiers had been killed in Ukraine since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine, Russian state news agency RIA is reporting.

The ministry said 1,597 Russians have been wounded so far, according to Russian media reports. It marks the first time Moscow has released figures for casualties sustained during the invasion.

Russia’s defence ministry also said that more than 2,870 Ukrainian soldiers and “nationalists” had been killed and about 3,700 wounded, according to Interfax.

The Guardian cannot independently verify the Russian figures and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine

The United Nations has voted overwhelmingly to deplore the Russian invasion of Ukraine “in the strongest possible terms”.

The UN general assembly has approved a resolution demanding that Russia stop the war in Ukraine and withdraw all troops.

The resolution won support from 141 votes and five voted against. There were 35 abstentions.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, has compared the Russian leader Vladimir Putin to Hitler.

Speaking at the UN, he said the Russian invasion of Ukraine was intended “to deprive Ukraine of the very right to exist”. “They have come to resolve the Ukrainian issue,” he said.

Kyslytsya added:

More than 80 years ago, another dictator tried to finally resolve the issue of another people. He failed when the world responded in a resolute and united manner.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations says we are living through a “defining moment for our generation”.

Sergiy Kyslytsya is speaking at the UN, where he called on member countries to step up to stop Russia.

Our generation is the generation that was supposed by our predecessors to be saved from the scourge of war.

That is why our predecessors created the United Nations.

And yet today, it falls to us to save future generations.

Viktoria, 32, describes the birth of her first child last Friday in a hospital underground shelter in Kyiv:

It was the second day of the war. I was really nervous – we were hearing explosions. I was praying to meet my son. I started to clean everything in my house, preparing for the baby, and even when I started to feel the pain, I couldn’t believe I’d be giving birth during war.

Me and my husband were afraid to drive to the hospital because of the explosions. First we had to spend about 30 minutes in a queue to get gas. Then we were riding through Kyiv and it was empty – I’d never seen such an empty city. We heard the sound of sirens. It was scary, like a movie, but I was trying to stay positive.

When we arrived, all the lights were turned off because hospital staff were afraid about being bombed. My doctor met us and showed us to a very comfortable and colourful room.

But two hours later we heard sirens. It was very loud. It was unreal to look through the window and see all the beautiful gothic architecture and hear the sirens. While I was pregnant I had taken yoga classes, prepared for gentle birth-giving, took courses. It wasn’t like this.

The doctor said we needed to go to the bomb shelter. There was panic as people were rushing. I couldn’t even put my trousers on because it was too painful. When we entered the shelter we were shocked. It was built in Soviet times and wasn’t maintained, it was crumbling and very wet and cold.

For us there was a small room without any doors, only a shower curtain that separated us from the main room with 50 people in it. There was no medical technology, just a gynaecological chair. I was trying to not even look over there and hoping to go back to the hospital soon.

Then my waters broke. My doctor looked at me and said: “OK, we will do it here, it’s too dangerous to wait.” At that moment I wasn’t afraid. I trusted my doctor – the only thing on my mind was holding my son and ending the pain.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is “deeply concerned” by reports of attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Ghebreyesus told a press conference that the WHO is working to verify the reports of “attacks on health facilities and health workers”, and said attacks on healthcare would be “in violation of international humanitarian law”.

The sanctity and neutrality of healthcare, including of health workers, patient supplies, transport and facilities and the right to safe access to care must be respected and protected.

The WHO confirmed a report last week in which a hospital came under attack from heavy weapons, killing four people and injuring 10, including six health workers, the WHO chief said.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has temporarily suspended a visa waiver for Ukrainian citizens, Reuters is reporting.

Ukraine’s embassy in the capital Abu Dhabi announced the visa suspension on its Facebook page without providing a reason. An embassy official later confirmed the news.

The UK’s speaker of the Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, welcomed the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko, to parliament on Wednesday.

MPs clapped and cheered as they gave him a standing ovation, a highly unusual act in the Commons.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy had just finished an interview yesterday when he learned of the Russian strike on the TV tower in Kyiv, close to Babyn Yar, a memorial and burial place for 30,000 Jews killed by the Nazis.

A Russian delegation is travelling to meet for talks with Ukrainian counterparts, Belarus’ Belta news agency is reporting.

The location of the talks has not yet been confirmed.

India is asking its nationals to leave Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv by Wednesday evening, based on information Indian authorities have received from Russia.

The external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said Indian nationals had been advised to move to three safe zones nine miles away, the Associated Press reported.

Bagchi declined to give details about what information New Delhi had received from Russia, which is invading Ukraine.

Bagchi also said nearly 17,000 Indian nationals, mostly students, out of an estimated 20,000, have left Ukraine. India is trying to evacuate the rest to nearby countries.

Keir Starmer has questioned why Roman Abramovich has not faced UK sanctions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Boris Johnson appeared to accept a Labour offer to strengthen a new bill cracking down on illicit assets.

At a prime minister’s questions that began with the rare sight of MPs standing in unison to applaud the Ukrainian ambassador, Vadym Prystaiko, who was watching from the public gallery, Starmer repeatedly called for tougher action against Russian oligarchs.

Here is a round-up of some of the most poignant and heartbreaking images to have emerged from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on Wednesday.

Describing the health situation in the cities that are increasingly under besieged, Jarno Hubicht the World Health Organisation’s representative in Ukraine told the Guardian:

We see that some cities now are getting isolated and we are getting reports that people don’t feel safe seek health care with health care workers under attack.

This is moving very fast with the military offensive broadening and we are moving closer to a humanitarian crisis. What we are seeing in places where there are hostilities is health service provisions being moved to the shelters and basements.

We don’t have a full picture but we are concerned about electricity provision, which is important to keep machines running, and oxygen and medicines for intensive care.

Where the military offensive is ongoing there is also a question access to supplies and while some hospitals have supplies for one or two weeks, but some are already running out.

It is also important to follow humanitarian law and protect health care workers. At the moment there are drivers who are scared go and get medicines and we have had reports of health workers under attack.

Thousands of Ukrainians have volunteered to defend their country and to fight Russia’s invasion, with recruits including IT workers and builders taking part in basic training before setting off for battle.

The volunteer centre in Lviv was packed on Wednesday with new soldiers who had signed up to join territorial defence units. Some were in military uniform. Others wore civilian clothes and baseball hats and carried shiny backpacks.

They lined up for the first time in a street on Taras Shevchenko Avenue, named after Ukraine’s national poet. “Raise your hand if you have a car,” their new commander barked. The recruits divided into groups and introduced themselves. Around them snow fell.

“History is happening right now. I don’t want to be on the sidelines,” Vitali, the 35-year-old boss of a Lviv startup said, speaking an assembly point. “I want to make history. Finally the world should know what is evil and what is good. We have the whole world’s support.”

He added: “The main reason we are going to win is because of people.” What was his message for Vladimir Putin? “I don’t negotiate with terrorists,” he said. “He is going to die soon. His regime will fall into dust.”

Vitali said he and his company’s 15 employees had begun weapons training five days before Russia’s attack. He had volunteered the day of the invasion. The recruits were going to learn combat first aid and other skills at an undisclosed location outside the city, he said.

With Kharkiv and Kyiv under brutal bombardment and the Ukrainian army encircled in the city of Mariupol, volunteers from western Ukraine are being brought in as reinforcements.

We have been hearing from Ukrainians on the frontline of the war, who have been facing relentless Russian attacks for days now.

Oleksiy Demchenko, a 27-year old computer programmer in Kharkiv told the Guardian:

Right now we are just trying to hold on. To tell the truth it’s hell. There are a lot airstrikes.

They are hitting people’s houses, health facilities, the parks. I live in the centre of Kharkiv. We saw air strikes yesterday and we’re hiding in the bedroom because it’s the most secure place in house.

The Russians came into the city a few days ago but the army destroyed them. Now they are hitting us from outside. Yesterday I wanted to go out to fill bottles with water but air strikes were killing people. We have some social services trying to help us with deliveries of food and water.

I think their main goal is to break us psychologically because they want us to evacuate city. Its a terror tactic we saw in Chechnya and Afghanistan. But our army will protect us. People won’t surrender.

Russian forces in Ukraine moved to tighten their siege of key cities, including the capital, Kyiv, and the southern port of Mariupol, as one mayor told residents he had been given an ultimatum to surrender or the city would be razed by shelling.

At an outdoor meeting Artem Semenikhin, the mayor of Konotop, in the eastern Sumy region, told residents: “They have given us an ultimatum. If we start resisting, they’ll wipe out the town using artillery.”

“If you are for it, we’ll fight,” Semenikhin is heard telling a crowd of residents. “Who votes to fight?” he shouts as residents shout back, insisting they will resist.

Amid renewed heavy shelling, the mayor of Kharkiv, also in the country’s east, said he had no intention of surrendering.

Russian forces have taken control of the area around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, according to the UN’s nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi.

In a statement, Grossi said Russian diplomats in Vienna informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that personnel have continued their work and that radiation levels “remain normal”.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is Europe’s largest power plant and has six out of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear energy reactors, according to the statement.

There are reports of Ukrainian citizens blocking roads leading to the power plant, with video posted on social media showing Ukrainians building makeshift roadblocks near the city of Energodar, where the Zaporizhzhia plant is located.

At least four people were killed and nine wounded after a fresh attack in Kharkiv this morning, the Ukrainian state emergency service said.

There are reports that Russian missiles have once again hit the centre of Ukraine’s second largest city, striking an area close to the city council building.

Kharkiv, a city of 1.5 million people, has been turned into a bombed-out wasteland of ruined buildings and debris after intense shelling and airstrikes by Russian forces.

After an air strike on Wednesday morning, the roof of a police building in the centre of the city collapsed as it was engulfed in flames.

The Ukrainian parliament said a school in Kharkiv had been hit by shelling.

The Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is suffering mass casualties and a water outage as it defends itself from a nonstop onslaught by Russian forces, according to its mayor Vadym Boichenko.

In a live broadcast on Ukrainian TV, Boichenko said:

The enemy occupying forces of the Russian Federation have done everything to block the exit of civilians from the city of half a million people.

Mariupol’s mayor said Russian forces had been “flattening us non-stop for 12 hours now”, the Interfax news agency reported.

We cannot even take the wounded from the streets, from houses and apartments today, since the shelling does not stop.

Talks between Ukraine and Russia will resume today, CNN is reporting, citing a Ukrainian presidential aide.

The second round of talks is expected to involve the same representatives who attended the first round of talks on Monday.

The aide told CNN:

Now it’s official. The second round of talks between Ukraine and the occupier will take place today.

The location of the talks has not yet been confirmed. On Monday, talks took place in Belarus, near the Belarus-Poland border.

The basement of the maternity hospital in Ukraine’s coastal city of Mariupol transformed into a bomb shelter and nursery as Russian forces escalated their attacks on crowded urban areas Tuesday, Peter Beaumont writes.

Workers bundled one newborn and carried him down flights of stairs to the basement, where a dimly lit room cramped with beds and cribs sheltered workers and patients.

A similar scene unfolded in Kharkiv, where a maternity ward was moved into a bomb shelter. Mothers there rocked newborns in cradles amid mattresses piled against the windows for protection.

More than 2,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since the Russian invasion, according to Ukraine’s emergency service.

In a statement, it said hundreds of structures including transport facilities, hospitals, kindergartens and homes have been destroyed.

Children, women and defence forces are losing their lives every hour.

Romanian MEP Cristian Terhes has been at the crossing point between Romania and Ukraine at Sighetul Marmatiei where he witnessed people being helped on the Romanian side but signs of chaos on the opposite side of the border, Daniel Boffey writes.

While the Romanian government and NGOs have capacity for those fleeing the war, people were being turned away on the Ukrainian side for not having documents to prove their nationality, he said, with Ukrainian border staff struggling with the numbers.

Terhes told the Guardian:

The Romanian people went beyond limits to organise themselves to properly receive the refugees from Ukraine, who were fleeing the war. The Romanians opened their homes, made their cars available for free transportation, provided food, sim cards and anything else needed for our neighbours, who are running to save their lives.

The volunteers, NGOs and the authorities are working at full speed on the Romanian side to assist all the refugees that are crossing the border.

The problem is a long delay on the Ukrainian side, as the personnel are overwhelmed and some people do not have the proper documentation to exit the country.

I crossed over to Ukraine twice to help carry provisions from Romania and I was shocked by the length of the lines for those waiting to exit the country. All these people are welcomed in Romania and many Romanians are extremely eager to help these poor people in desperate situations.

The photographs taken on 27 February shows a long line, with about 1,000 refugees waiting on the Ukrainian side. Most of them were women with children and elderly people, he said.

EU sanctions against RT, formerly known as Russia Today, and Sputnik have been legally signed off clearing the way for national regulators across the bloc to remove them from media platforms, Lisa O’Carroll writes.

As the information war escalates with Russian cracking down, EU officials insisted the move was not “censorship” and was not a sanction on journalists who may work for RT in the EU.

An official said:

The two entities are not classic media organisations. They are in the pro-Kremlin disinformation toolbox.

They added:

RT is on an official list of core organisations of strategic importance for Russia and Sputnik has been created by presidential decree.

If you look at the words of the editor-in-chief of RT, you can see it is an instrument to conduct an information war against the whole western world.

The Luxembourg satellite company SES confirmed it would be pulling the plug on RT once sanctions came into force, removing it from the Sky platform as well as other networks across the EU.

Twitter has said it will be removing RT and Sputnik from its platform in line with EU sanctions.

The French minister for digital economy, Cédric O, today criticised the tech giant for not reacting to events fast enough.

He told French radio:

Twitter is always, always the last one to react, and always the one not to do enough on [content] moderation.

A spokesperson told Politico:

We continue to advocate for a free and open internet, particularly in times of crisis.

Cybersecurity experts have identified a second so-called “wiper” cyber-attack targeted at Ukraine, reports Dan Milmo.

The warning from ESET research labs, a Slovakia-based cyber-security firm, comes after it flagged an initial salvo on 23 February, which it had dubbed HermeticWiper.

Wiper attacks disable computers, the most notorious example being the 2017 NotPetya attack, attributed to Russia, which wreaked havoc across Ukraine and elsewhere by irretrievably encrypting computers.

ESET said in a report on Tuesday that it had detected a second wiper attack against a Ukrainian governmental network, discovered on the day the offensive began on 24 February, that it has named IsaacWiper. It described it as “way less sophisticated” than HermeticWiper.

However, ESET added in a blogpost that it had uncovered a “worm component”, dubbed HermeticWizard, that could be used to spread the HermeticWiper in local networks.

NotPetya went viral and caused damage in 65 countries (the total cost of attack was estimated at $10bn).

HermeticWiper’s initial impact appears was on hundreds of computers in at least five Ukrainian organisations and also hit computers in Latvia and Lithuania. ESET stresses that it has not pinned the blame for these attacks on any state or organisation yet.

A second round of talks between Ukraine and Russia will take place later today, Russian state news agency Tass has reported, citing an aide to the Ukrainian presidential office.

Earlier today, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters a Russian delegation will be “in place” on Wednesday for a new round of talks with Ukraine.

In the second half of the day, closer to evening, our delegation will be in place to await Ukrainian negotiators.

Asked about the location of the talks, Peskov replied:

I won’t announce the place ahead of time.

On Monday, talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations took place in Belarus, not far from the Ukrainian border, but ended without a breakthrough.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he has “coordinated actions” with the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson.

Hello, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong with you again as we unpack all the latest developments on the unfolding crisis in Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.

Four more people were killed and nine wounded as a barrage of Russian air and rocket strikes pounded the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning, the local emergency services and mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

In an online video, the Reuters news agency report him as saying:

Kharkiv is a Russian-speaking city. Every fourth person in Kharkiv has relatives in the Russian Federation. But the city’s attitude to Russia today is completely different to what it ever was before.

We never expected this could happen: total destruction, annihilation, genocide against the Ukrainian people – this is unforgivable.

China won’t join the US and European governments in imposing financial sanctions on Russia, the country’s bank regulator has announced.

China is a major buyer of Russian oil and gas and the only major government that has refrained from criticising Moscow’s attack on Ukraine, the Associated Press reported.

Beijing opposes the sanctions, said Guo Shuqing, the chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.

Guo said at a news conference:

We will not join such sanctions, and we will keep normal economic, trade and financial exchanges with all the relevant parties.

We disapprove of the financial sanctions, particularly those launched unilaterally, because they don’t have much legal basis and will not have good effects.

Pope Francis has asked people around the world to remember Ukrainians in underground shelters seeking protection from bombardments and thanked Poland for taking in the bulk of refugees from the war.

Francis spoke at his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday, which he has declared a day of prayer and fasting for peace in Ukraine, Reuters reported.

After addressing Poles, the pope went off script to say that the Polish translator on the stage with him, Father Marek Viktor Gongalo, is Ukrainian. The pope said:

His parents are now in underground shelters to protect themselves from the bombs in a place near Kyiv.

By accompanying him, we accompany all the people who are suffering from the bombings, including his elderly parents and so many other elderly who are in underground shelters defending themselves. Let us remember these people in our hearts.

Kyiv residents have been sheltering in metro stations and other underground sites at night, there are long lines for fuel, and some products are running out in shops.

The Kremlin said Russian officials were ready to hold a second round of talks with Ukraine on Wednesday but it was not clear if Ukrainian officials would turn up.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there was contradictory information regarding the talks, Reuters reported.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that Russia must stop the bombing of Ukrainian cities before talks could take place.

Peskov also said Moscow needed to formulate a harsh, thought-out and clear response against measures imposed on western countries to undermine the Russian economy.

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has called on Russians to stage daily protests against Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine, his spokesperson wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

“Alexei Navalny has called for people to go out and protest against the war every day at 19:00 and on weekends at 14:00. The main squares of your towns, wherever you are,” spokesperson Kira Yarmysh wrote.

Navalny’s movement had previously called for a campaign of civil disobedience to protest against Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.

Navalny, the most prominent opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was jailed last year after he returned to Russia from Germany following his recovery from what western laboratory tests established was an attempt to poison him with a nerve agent in Siberia. Russia denied carrying out such an attack.

The UK defence secretary has once again ruled out a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying it would be counter-productive.

However, he warned there was a risk Vladimir Putin would start to “ruthlessly pummel” cities from the air.

Ben Wallace rejected calls from Ukraine for a no-fly zone because it would “lead to a war against Russia across the whole of Europe”.

He also said it would stop Ukrainian pilots being able to target Russia from the air, giving an advantage to Moscow, which has stronger ground troops and tanks.

“If you had a no-fly zone in Ukraine, the overwhelming scale of the Russian army would be able to drive around with impunity, which it can’t at the moment,” the defence secretary told Sky News.

Wallace said a convoy of Russian tanks heading towards Kyiv was moving so slowly because of logistical problems and low morale.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said nearly 6,000 Russians had been killed in the first six days of Moscow’s invasion, and that the Kremlin would not be able to take his country with bombs and airstrikes.

In his latest speech, he also condemned a missile strike on Babyn Yar, a Holocaust memorial in Kyiv, saying: “It is beyond humanity.”

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has told the Reuters news agency that holding more talks with Russia was under discussion and that a “substantial agenda” was needed.

Asked about the date for a second round of talks since Russia invaded its neighbour last week, Podolyak said:

It’s under discussion for now. A substantial agenda is needed.

Russia has claimed that its forces had taken control of the first sizeable city on Wednesday, seizing Kherson in the south.

Strategically located on the Dniepr river, the provincial capital would be the biggest city to fall to Russian forces so far.

The southeast city of Mariupol had been under intense shelling since late Tuesday and was unable to evacuate wounded, according to its mayor.

However, we are still awaiting confirmation from the Ukrainians about the current status of Kherson.

The European Commission has proposed to grant temporary protection to people fleeing war in Ukraine, including a residence permit and access to employment and social welfare.

Designed to deal with mass arrivals of displaced persons in the EU, the new legislation will provide the same level of protection in all member states.

The proposal, which had been previously announced, will be discussed by EU interior ministers on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will become more brutal, British defence minister Ben Wallace said on Wednesday.

“Anyone who thinks logically would not do what he (Putin) is doing, so we are going to see ... his brutality increase,” Wallace told LBC radio.

“He doesn’t get his way, he surrounds cities, he ruthlessly bombards them at night ... and he will then eventually try and break them and move into the cities.”

Russia cancelled an attempt to send four of its warships through Turkish waters into the Black Sea at Turkey’s request, Foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlusaid, adding the decision was made before Ankara closed the straits over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Nato member Turkey borders Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea and has good ties with both. On Monday, Ankara said it had closed its Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits under a 1936 pact, allowing it to curb some Russian vessels crossing. The pact exempts vessels returning to their bases.

Çavuşoğlu told broadcaster Haberturk that Turkey had asked Russia not to send its ships through before it labelled Moscow’s invasion a “war” on Sunday, legally allowing it to curb passages under the Montreux convention.

“Russia has said four of its ships would cross the straits on Feb 27-28, three of which are not registered to bases in the Black Sea,” Çavuşoğlu said. “We told Russia not to send these ships and Russia said the vessels would not cross the straits.”

“Nobody should be offended by this, because the Montreux convention is valid today, yesterday and tomorrow, so we will implement it,” he said.

Reuters reported earlier this week that at least four Russian ships – two destroyers, a frigate, and an intelligence vessel – were waiting on Turkey’s decision to cross from the Mediterranean. Two of them, a frigate and a destroyer, had asked to make the journey this week.

The US “expressed appreciation” for Turkey’s move to close the straits. Ukraine’s ambassador to Ankara said Kyiv was grateful to Turkey for “meticulously” implementing the pact.

The British Ministry of Defence has published its latest intelligence report on the situation in Ukraine today.

It says that while Russian forces have moved into the centre of Kherson in the south of the country, overall gains have been “limited” due to ongoing logistical issues and strong Ukrainian resistance.

Heavy Russian artillery and airstrikes have continued to hit built-up areas, focused in the cities of Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mariupol and Chernihiv, in the past 24 hours, it says.

The update adds that the number of civilians left displaced and forced to flee stands at about 660,000.

I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you the latest updates from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over the next few hours.

Ukrainian authorities say a Russian missile strike at about 8.10am this morning hit a police building and a university in Kharkiv.

The State Service for Emergencies uploaded a series of photos showing firefighters and rescue teams battling a blaze billowing from the top of a large building.

The strike also reportedly hit the state security service (SBU) building.

Ukraine is set to receive more Stinger and Javelin missiles from abroad, as well as another shipment of Turkish drones, according to Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov.

In an update posted to his Facebook and Telegram accounts, Reznikov said:

The amount of help we are receiving is increasing. The number of countries providing this assistance is growing. Even those for whom it was considered impossible are joining. More stingers and javelins to come.”

Several western countries have pledged to supply Ukraine with weapons to fend off a Russian invasion.

Germany is prepared should Russia stop exporting gas to the country, minister for the economy Robert Habeck has said.

Asked by Deutschlandfunk radio what the government would do if Russia stops gas exports, Reuters reports Habeck replied:

We are prepared for that. I can give the all-clear for the current winter and summer. For the next winter, we would take further measures.

Habeck pointed to planned new legislation to ensure gas storage is full for winter.

“So we are also taking precautions for the worst case, which has not happened yet because the Russians are delivering,” he said, adding that in a worse case scenario Berlin could keep “coal-fired power plants in reserve, maybe even keep them running”, but that it was committed to moving to renewables in the medium-term.

A Royal Australian Air Force plane left for Europe today carrying military equipment and medical supplies, following prime minister Scott Morrison’s announcement that Australia will provide defensive military assistance to Ukraine.

Morrison said on Sunday that Australia would provide weapons to Ukraine through Nato, supplementing nonlethal equipment and supplies.

The joint operations command of the Australian military shared a snap of the plane taking off from the RAAF Base Richmond in New South Wales around 5.30pm AEST.

More than 450,000 people entered Poland from Ukraine since the Russian invasion began last Thursday, Poland’s deputy interior minister Pawel Szefernaker told private Radio Zet on Wednesday.

He added that the number of people entering Poland fell slightly on Tuesday to 98,000 from a record number of more than 100,000 on Monday.

As the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s defiance has made him a hero across the world.

Guardian reporter Viv Groskop asks: Could his success as a politician lie in his years as an entertainer?

When Zelenskiy was elected in April 2019, at the age of 41, the Russian commentator Sergey Parkhomenko said: “He is weak, he does not have a religion, he does not have a nationality.” It was meant as a criticism, even though all these reasons were precisely why people had voted for Zelenskiy. He is not intimidating. He does not come from a political background. He is a Russian speaker from the centre of the country. But, most of all, to Ukrainians, he was recognisable and he was funny. That nice guy off that TV show Servant of the People. You know, the one where the geeky history teacher becomes the president overnight. The Paddington voice guy.

The United Nations has said that at least 136 civilians have been killed in the invasion, although the real number of people is likely much higher.

As the human cost mounts, here are some details on some of the civilians who have perished. They include 10-year-old Polina, who was killed in Kyiv along with members of her family by alleged “Russian saboteurs”, and secondary school teachers Yelena Ivanova and Yelena Kudrin, who died during a shelling in Goldovka.

Russia’s richest man, Alexei Mordashov, is now an EU sanctions target, Guardian reporter Joanna Partridge reports.

He is the Russian oligarch who stepped in to keep travel firm Tui afloat, pumping in cash as international tourism came to a standstill during the pandemic.

However, Alexei Mordashov – who owns a third of Europe’s biggest tour operator and is its largest single shareholder – may be becoming something of a liability for Tui, whose shares are listed in London, after the EU added him to its sanctions list on Monday night.

While Mordashov has not been sanctioned in the UK, his business interests in the region will now be severely curtailed.

Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank, is leaving the European market as its subsidiaries there face large cash outflows and threats to the safety of employees and property, the bank said on Wednesday.

The bank said it was no longer able to supply liquidity to European subsidiaries, but its capital level and asset quality were sufficient to make payments to all depositors. In a statement, it said:

In the current situation, Sberbank has decided to leave the European market.

The group’s subsidiary banks have faced abnormal cash outflows and threats to the safety of its employees and branches.”

Unprecedented steps by western nations to isolate Russia’s economy and financial system over its invasion of Ukraine include sanctions on its central bank and the exclusion of some of its lenders from global payments system Swift.

On Monday, the European Central Bank (ECB) warned that Sberbank’s European arm faced closure after a run on its deposits sparked by the invasion backlash.

Sberbank, which operates in Austria, Croatia, Germany and Hungary among other nations, had European assets worth 13 billion euros by 31 December 2020.

In step with the recent outpouring of economic relief to Ukraine, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Wednesday that she, Vice President William Lai and Premier Su Tseng-chang will each donate one month’s salary to help with humanitarian relief efforts for Ukraine, Reuters reports.

Ukraine’s besieged cities have come under more heavy bombardment after Russian commanders facing fierce resistance intensified their shelling of urban areas. Here is where Russian troops currently stand.

Mobile-phone video shows wrecked residential buildings with no windows, and fallen trees and power lines, in the aftermath of strikes that killed at least 11 people in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city on Monday.

Kharkiv’s regional administration chief said artillery had pounded residential districts. The city has been the target of some of the worst aerial attacks since Ukraine was invaded by Russian forces.

Moscow’s stock market will stay closed for the third consecutive day on Wednesday, the Moscow Times reports.

Russian brokers have been ordered to reject sell orders from foreign investors when the market eventually reopens.

Researchers are gathering evidence of possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

My colleague, Dan Sabbagh, reports that an ‘open-source intelligence community’ is already collecting and studying video and photo evidence that Russia’s military is committing war crimes with deadly attacks on civilians and the use of cluster munitions.

Eliot Higgins, the founder of the investigative journalism site Bellingcat, said there was evidence of Russia causing “civilian harm”, including through the use of “cluster bombs in civilian areas”, from credible video and stills of the conflict.

Footage of an attack on a car park in Kharkiv on Monday, described by a Bellingcat researcher as a cluster bomb strike, shows residents walking in a nearby park just as the sequence of bombs go off. The area appears to be residential.

Dashcam footage, assessed by Russia’s Conflict Intelligence Team to have been shot in Kharkiv, is thought to show a cluster bomb landing in a road last Friday. The driver makes a hasty U-turn as explosions rain around the car. Given the lack of aircraft noise, the bomb was probably fired by a Russian Grad rocket system, the researchers conclude.

Twitter will comply with the European Union’s sanctions on Russian state-affiliated media RT and Sputnik when the EU order takes effect, the social network said on Tuesday.

“The European Union (EU) sanctions will likely legally require us to withhold certain content in EU member states,” a Twitter spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

“We intend to comply with the order when it goes into effect.”

Outside the EU, Twitter would continue to focus on reducing the visibility of content from these outlets as well as labelling it.

The United Nations General Assembly is set to reprimand Russia on Wednesday over its invasion of Ukraine and demand that Moscow stop fighting and withdraw its military forces, a move that aims to diplomatically isolate Russia at the world body, Reuters reports.

More reports are coming in following a fire at a hospital in Kharkiv overnight.

According to an alert issued just before 3am from Ukraine’s State Special Communications agency, Russian soldiers attacked a military medical clinical centre hospital in the city’s north.

Kharkiv region police chief Volodymyr Tymoshko told reporters on Wednesday that no Ukrainian troops were killed in the gun battle, the BBC reports.

“Currently the situation near the hospital is under control, security has been strengthened,” he said, according to Ukrainian media.

The Guardian has not been able to verify the latest reports out of Kharkiv but the city had been encircled by Russian forces for days.

At least six people were reported to have been killed when the region’s administrative building on Freedom Square was hit with what was believed to be a missile.

Russia president Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to prohibit Russians from leaving the country with more than $10,000 in foreign currency, Russia state media outlet TASS reports.

Citing the decree, the news agency reported:

The export of foreign currency cash and foreign currency instruments over $10,000 calculated based on the official exchange rate set by the Russian Central Bank on the day of export will be banned starting on March 2.”

The move is an attempt to “ensure Russia’s financial stability” according to a statement from the Kremlin press office.

It comes in response to the crippling sanctions western nations have imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

In Kherson on the Black Sea in southern Ukraine, Russian forces have taken control of the railway station and the port overnight, city mayor Igor Kolykhayev was quoted by local media, Agence France-Press reports.

Officials yesterday reported Russian checkpoints encircling the city.

“The city is under shelling,” Kolykhayev wrote on his official Facebook page on Tuesday, adding that residential houses were burning and urging residents to stay off the streets.